The authorities were to take rational and timely measures given that a number of European states had been already affected by the novel coronavirus, including by ensuring efficient communication with the people, by placing emphasis on acknowledgement so as to reduce the cases of import of COVID-19 and to stop local transmission. In the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republic of Moldova can also learn from the experience of European states. Opportunities can be deducted from this crisis, including by reorienting the businesses that are now in difficulty. The opinions were stated in a debate organized by the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, IPN reports.
Dionis Cenușă, researcher at the Giessen University of Germany, said the Republic of Moldova is dependent on the external developments. When the number of confirmed cases of infection with COVID-19 started to rise in Italy and other European states, it became clear that measures were needed to filter out the persons who returned home and to detect cases of infection. “I think the most shameful omission of the authorities was witnessed here as the decisions to introduce very strict measures to examine the persons returning from affected countries didn’t meet at least my expectations. But this wasn’t the most serious aspect as the communication aspect intervened later. And the communication of the authorities with the citizens, who normally should remain isolated if they returned from a country affected by COVID-19, didn’t match the expectations. Here, I evidently saw, on the one hand, the seriously undermined credibility of the authorities following other, previous political, economic processes, but also ignorance and misapprehension of the real effects of this pandemic among the people,” stated Dionis Cenușă
Dumitru Vicol, emerging markets strategist at an American bank in London, said that unlike the previous crises, the current one is a public health crisis that involves the economic crisis. The effects will be rather serious. The previous crises showed that when the productive capital is destroyed, the return is rather challenging. The people should realize that things will be fully different after this crisis, including the global economy and the national economy. The Government’s task is to keep the current jobs, regardless of the costs. The management of the current crisis is important, but the recovery moment, after the crisis, is even more important.
Oleg Tofilat, adviser to the Prime Minister, noted that the situation is completely uncertain. During the previous crises, particular estimates could be made at least for some of the sectors. Now this is difficult. The authorities focus on the management of the current crisis, in particular on the formulation of policies concerning the economic effects and of post-crisis recovery policies. The Government aims first of all to minimize the extent of the pandemic and this comes not only to the healthcare sector. A lot of logistic work is to be done – repatriation of Moldovans, filtering out, imposition of measures and their observance. “If we are an intelligent society, we could go out of this crisis much more prepared than we entered it. I refer to the prepended to be part of the global economy. Among the measures that we should take relatively swiftly is to help the business community to restructure, to focus on digitization and to supply what we need now,” stated the adviser.
The debate was staged by the Institute for European Policies and Reforms with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
