The Democratic Party’s initiative to renounce the mandatory military service is unprepared and goes against the Government’s bill on the defense strategy of the Republic of Moldova. The authors of the initiative should publish the documents based on which they reached the announced conclusion or this will be considered a populist initiative launched for electoral purposes, Igor Botan, standing expert of IPN’s project, stated in the public debate “Professional army: motives, benefit, risks” that was staged by IPN News Agency and Radio Moldova.
Igor Botan said the implementation of such a reform during two years is an interesting, but very difficult task and the ruling party should have already had a series of instruments in hand, such as the national security strategy, the national defense strategy and the military doctrine. As to the national security strategy, there are disagreements between the supreme commander of the national army, President Igor Dodon, and the government. The President annulled the strategy worked out under the aegis of his predecessor Nicolae Timofti. Last year, the Government adopted the defense strategy of the Republic of Moldova, which was accompanied by a plan of action that covered a period of almost ten years. But this says nothing about the annulment of the mandatory military service.
As to the military doctrine that was adopted in 1995, many things have changed since then. The Constitutional Court judgment of May 2, 2017 says that the Republic of Moldova has an occupied territory and indicates the country that occupied this, but no law on the juridical regime of the occupied territory was adopted since then. “I do not understand how one can propose such a reform in the current conditions, when the key documents - the two strategies and the doctrine – are absent and the Constitutional Court says that we have an occupied territory,” stated the expert.
According to Igor Botan, the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova has at least five articles that refer to security and defense. One of them says it clearly that the country’s defense is a duty and an obligation of each citizen of the Republic of Moldova. On the other hand, the law on the training of citizens for defending the country says each citizen should be enrolled in the army from the age of 16. “There are many conflicting features. The legislation of the Republic of Moldova hasn’t been adjusted to the latest amendments and we are unexpectedly told that a reform will be done during two years. Not many details about the costs were provided,” he said.
He also said that if the document on the switchover from the mandatory military service to contract-based military service was published, the experts could say how real is it to do the reform in two years.
The public debate “Professional army: motives, benefit, risks” was the 88th installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are staged with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
