Today, IPN News Agency initiates a new series of articles designed to help the citizens better understand the main political messages disseminated in the public sphere by relevant Moldovan political players. The series is entitled “Countering Domestic and Foreign Propaganda through Correct Information and Debunking” and represents the logical follow-up to two projects implemented by IPN during many years. The first project is the series of debates “Development of political culture through public debates” that was carried out with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany. As part of the second project, the Agency produced and continues to produce news articles based on the main evening talk shows on all the national TV channels by publishing these in the early morning of the next day. The given news items present the political statements in the way in which they were formulated, based on the principle of correctness. The series launched today will help us clarify the undertones of the official assertions and real interests of the decision makers that bear responsibility before Moldovan society for statements and actions. In general, the media products of IPN ensure the unbiased replication of statements and the delimitation of information from opinion.
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An International Economic Forum was held in St. Petersburg during May 24-26, 2018 under the promising theme “Building an Economy of Trust”. The channel NTV-Moldova informed us about the trenchant messages delivered by President Igor Dodon at the Forum. The most important message was reiterated in the different formats of the event, including during the discussion with the Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Volodin and was addressed to the business community of the country that hosted the forum – “Moldovan economy is open to Russian investors” and a stimulus in this regard is the fact that ”Moldova can hold interest for the Russian business as our country signed Free Trade Agreements both with the CIS countries and with the European Union (DCFTA), and also with Turkey; the taxes for Moldovan business entities are almost equal to those in Russia and the resident companies of the seven Free Economic Zones enjoy a number of benefits, etc.”.
The President’s message addressed to the Russian business community is correct and appropriate. However, an essential thing omitted by NTV and the presidential press service should be noted. It is the obvious discrepancy between the message transmitted this year and last year’s message. In his speech in the plenary meeting of June 3, 2017, Igor Dodon laid emphases in an absolutely different way. According to the Russian press, that speech was actually devoted to the tenth anniversary of the Munich speech given by the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The main these in Mister Igor Dodon’s speech were the following: the epoch of unipolar world is over; imposed globalization in the period of the unipolar world should be replaced with glocalization that takes into are account the particularities of national economies; Moldova has values that are different from those of the Western world; Moldova’s Association Agreement and Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the European Union are subjugating as the Moldovan market is invaded by European products and this undermines the development of Moldovan economy; it is a matter of principle for Moldova to get rid of globalization and, within glocalization, to join the area to which it is historically and culturally attached (Eurasian Union); the economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the West are illegitimate and counterproductive, etc.
Based on those mentioned, we can easily see that one year after the plea for glocalization, the plenary meetings of the forum in St. Petersburg were held without the participation of Mister Igor Dodon, but with the participation of the “sharks” of globalization, the leaders of the most developed countries that form the web of the globalized world, including Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. In such circumstances, Mister Igor Dodon discovered advantages in the Association Agreement, including the DCFTA, for the Republic of Moldova and for the eventual relations with the Russian business community. However, it’s a pity that the President hasn’t had the courage to say that the eventual cooperation with the Russian business community is endangered by the ban imposed by the Russian Federation on Moldova in 2013 namely for the intention to sign the Association Agreement and the DCFTA. He had the courage to admonish the West at the forum in 2017 for sanctioning Russia for annexing Crimea and undermining regional security, but does not have courage to condemn the absolutely unfounded sanctions of Russia against the own country. This is the tribute paid for the glorification of the Munich theses of President Vladimir Putin.
One more thing should be noted here. Before inviting Russian businesses to the Republic of Moldova to eventually benefit from the DCFTA, Mister Igor Dodon should call on his colleagues from the Party of Socialists to eliminate the clause about the scrapping of the Association Agreement and the DCFTA from the party’s political program. Why should Russian businesses invest in Moldova’s economy and benefit from the DCFTA if Mister Igor Dodon forestalls the absolute victory of the Socialists in the parliamentary elections of this yearend, who intend to annul the DCFTA?
IPN experts
