The people are mainly dissatisfied with the new natural gas rates because the reality is dramatic. There are over 700,000 pensioners in Moldova and only 182,000 of them get a pension of 2,000 lei. As the prices of medicines and food products grow, these people will face serious difficulties, Nicolae Pascaru, ex-MP of the Party of Socialists, stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.
He noted that the minimum salary in Moldova is now 2,935 lei, while the minimum consumer basket is 2,700 lei. The people will simply go abroad, as it happened the previous years. Statistics in the Republic of Moldova are painful. A mistake in diplomacy, namely in the policy pursued by the Government, can lead to a social catastrophe and not only.
According to Nicolae Pascaru, besides the higher gas rates, the people also face the COVID-19 pandemic that claims more lives. “As a result, not the middle class that is contracting in the Republic of Moldova suffers, but the people in need suffer and this is felt. I think it is better for our people to adopt an action plan, long-term strategies for improving the living conditions. They intensely debate the fight against corruption, the modernization of the judicial system. If the citizens of the Republic of Moldova do not have decent salaries, these phenomena will not just fade away,” stated the former MP, noting the living standards have worsened.
Nicolae Pascaru noted that a team should be set up to have talks with Gazprom, with the Russian Federation, and this should try to renegotiate the gas supply contract so as to obtain more advantageous conditions. The people should know more details from the contract. The Government’s assistance is awaited by the whole society. Many businesses can go bankrupt when the new gas rates start to be applied.
The public debate “Shock of rates and government’s remedies for diminishing its impact on the population” is the 213th installment of the series of debates “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates”. The project is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
