German strategic adviser appointed in context of EU accession
A Moldovan-German agreement published in the Official Gazette (Monitorul Oficial) provides for a German specialist to be seconded to the Office of the President of the Republic of Moldova for 12 months as a senior strategic adviser.
Under the agreement, the German side will cover the secondee’s salary, insurance and travel costs to and from the Republic of Moldova. The Moldovan side, in turn, will provide security, office space and equipment, and cover the costs of official business trips. At the end of the term, the Moldovan side will assess the adviser’s work.
The legal basis for sending the specialist is an agreement between the governments of Moldova and Germany, signed in Berlin on 14 October 2010. The document states that the secondment is taking place as part of cooperation between the two sides in the context of Moldova’s European integration process.
The obvious question is why a specialist from Germany is needed for a post that could have been filled by a Moldovan citizen.
The agreement says the secondment is linked to Moldova’s commitments in the process of joining the European Union. This is consistent with the justification the Moldovan authorities gave when convening the extraordinary parliamentary session of 20–26 August, during which glaring procedural violations took place. At the time, officials said priority was being given to draft laws connected with the national programme for EU accession.
Chubashenko points to wider sovereignty questions
The entry into force of the agreement coincided with a period of domestic political instability in Germany. Journalist Dmitry Chubashenko noted that elections had taken place in several German federal states in September, after which Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz faced serious political consequences.
“This will be bad news for his friends, male and female, in Chișinău,” Chubashenko said, commenting on the possibility of Merz’s departure.
He added that elections due over the next year in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain, as well as the course of the war in Ukraine, would have far greater influence on Moldova’s future than all the petty manoeuvring in the Chișinău presidency and parliament, or the carousel of visiting clowns in government.
“This is a question of Moldova’s real sovereignty, if anyone was wondering,” he wrote.
The appointment of a German strategic adviser therefore raises more than a technical staffing question. Formally, it is presented as cooperation linked to European Union accession, but politically it once again highlights how much of Moldova’s decision-making is now tied to outside capitals, outside agendas and outside personnel.
