Interview with Jerzy Pomianowski, executive director of the European Endowment for Democracy, conducted by Dionis Cenusa for IPN News Agency on the sidelines of the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum held in Bonn on June 13-15, 2016. The European Endowment for Democracy offers financial assistance for different projects implemented by the NGO sector in Moldova.
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“One oligarch running the country is bigger danger to democracy!”
- How do you assess the political and civil society’s realities of Moldova?
- The only chance and source of success of Moldova is to preserve its energy and its civil society’s quality because this is something that makes Moldova so successful in its endeavor towards democracy. But it’s easy to lose this energy because people often get frustrated when their energy is not transformed into the reality and actual change. However, the actual change depends on state and political structures, and on international environment.
So in that sense, civil society should not be frustrated, but should be happy that they achieved so much so far. And that’s because we can see examples when civil society cannot operate that freely like in Moldova. The ability to be part of the change of the society is reduced to the very little level. Respectively, the Moldovan civil society is an asset and a potential that will eventually prevail and make Moldovan democratic transformations successful.
Political situation is different. In case of Moldova we have an international factor that is represented by the support from Europe. It was provided on the basis of certain declarations coming from a group of pro-European political parties, which were run by two oligarchs – Mr. Filat and Mr. Plahotniuc. I remember that when one of the two oligarchs put the other one in the prison I twitted that “What is bigger danger to democracy in Moldova than two oligarchs running the country?”. And the answer is “It’s one oligarch running the country!”. So this is something that Moldova and its political elite have to struggle to clean it up. It is necessary to establish political movements that are credible, pro-democratic, and pro-European values.
Because of the lack of attention, Europe didn’t see the real situation during many years. It didn’t see that the declarations and the actual deeds are not exactly the same. Therefore, the pro-European reformers are not necessarily always reformist. It’s not about all of them, but it was enough to jeopardize the whole process and to lose the trust of the people.
“Civil society has to control from the day one every new government”
- Do you think that Moldovan society has enough resources to produce political alternatives, new political movements?
- Absolutely. Look what happens recently. The Platform for Dignity and Truth made the biggest gathering probably from the independence of Moldova. So many people gathered together just to say that they are unhappy about something. Maia Sandu got popularity up to 25-30% over few months, though she is a person without big political history. But she came with clean hands. Also, we talk about Iurie Leanca with his new political efforts trying to clean up himself from the past and build new credibility. I think that if we look at the political scene we will find a lot of energy and people who can deliver. But not everything is about one person or another. It’s about how they want to deal with the society in future, and if they consider civil society, people and free media as integral parts of the process. Or they simply look for another shift of the seats of those who rule and not in changes, while the corruption and inefficient justice go as before. If this is the case then of course there is no future.
But I believe that there is enough social energy to have a situation like in Ukraine where the civil society says – ‘We trust you but we monitor you, we vote for you but we will never leave a free hand’.
So civil society has to control from the day one every new government, and has to make the latter accountable and responsible. This is not about faces, it’s about mechanism that exists and that is acceptable for everybody.
“Moldova and Ukraine have similar strong civil societies”
- How would you assess the Moldovan civil society comparing with those present in other countries of the region?
- I believe that Moldova and Ukraine have similar strong civil societies and that’s what keeps on the transformations.
- You have criticized the European Union for being tolerant with the pro-European governments that actually were not enough reformists. Do you think that Moldovan civil society shares some responsibilities as well? Some representatives of civil society started to work with and for these governments or they became part of the political parties that run the country?
- Working with governments is nothing wrong. Civil society is part of the same society. So all problems faced by society are common for the civil society as well. It’s not an isolated phenomenon. On contrary, the civil society works with people, with government or with local authorities. And this is what I call vibrant civil society. However, civil society works on its own agendas related to ecology, domestic violence etc. So they don’t need every time to see if the government is good or bad. But there are moments when the government does not deliver. And the civil society should mobilize the society. And this exists in Moldova and Ukraine. So this energy and ability of sending message saying “Enough is enough” is part of the Moldovan society, which is a big asset. And it makes any political power in Moldova to think twice when they present themselves to the people.
“We should never expect that somebody will do the job for us”
- Do you think that the European Union is doing enough in order to support civil society in Moldova? And what would you change to provide the assistance that will make civil society stronger and more active?
- Definitely, we can do more in Europe. But at the same time we should never expect that somebody will do the job for us. In that sense, we should also be very careful regarding the logic that the civil society will work only if it receives support. In the beginning of 90th, it was a lot of support to Poland. But in case of civil society the support came from the Americans. The European Union did not provide in nearly 90th that much support to civil society. Today, within Eastern Partnership programs Europe invest more in civil society. But it also has a danger that is about a part of the civil society looks more like a professional consultancy than a real civil society that talks to people. Sometimes I am saying to my colleagues from the European Commission and other European institutions let’s move from the money to the methodology how the money is spent. A threshold of a project of minimum 300.000 EUR I don’t think that it’s good for Moldova because then only 5 or 6 organizations with a huge capacity can really prepare applications for such projects. My proposal is to have the same amount of money, but to have hundreds of smaller projects each of them 30.000 EUR. This will be much more beneficial for Moldovan civil society.
