The future chance of adopting the "Magnitsky law", though distant, will emerge after and if the pro-EU opposition will be able to remove the Socialists from power, writes political researcher Dionis Cenuşa in an analytical article for the IPN News Agency.

However, the physical immobilization of the oligarch, through the partial US sanctions recently introduced, is insufficient, argue Dionis Cenuşa.

In his opinion, the blocking of real estate and financial assets, owned at least in the US, should be activated for the acts of corruption (contribution to the "theft of the billion") under the provisions of the "Magnitsky Act".

Another logical and imperative step would be to extend the sanctions to at least Ilan Shor, who fled to Israel, due to the double citizens, the political scientist adds.

He recalls that the nationalization of the "Magnitsky Act" and its transposition into the national normative framework was suggested in 2018, but got lost in the ACUM-PSRM negotiations for coalition formation.

The mentioning of the "Magnitsky Act" was missing from the PSRM-ACUM political agreements, the initial one from June and the one from September of 2019. This caused a major deviation from the electoral promises of the ACUM bloc. In January 2020, a few months after the resignation of the government of Maia Sandu and ACUM's exclusion from the government, the Platform DA returned to the topic of very much needed adoption of the "Magnitsky law", points out the political researcher.

He notes that almost two years have elapsed since the Liberal Democratic Party proposed such a bill (in July 2018), while representing the parliamentary opposition. An explanation of the failure of the ACUM bloc to enforce the "Magnitsky law" is the geopolitical compromise with the PSRM.

The presidential elections of 2020 constitute a first "window of opportunity" for the future nationalization of the "Magnitsky Act", the political researcher concludes.