Politician Irina Vlah has released a video statement sharply criticizing Moldova’s ruling PAS party for attempting to shift the burden of the country’s debt onto ordinary citizens through higher taxes.
According to the leader of the Heart of Moldova party, the government expects to raise 6 billion lei through its proposed tax reform. Vlah claims this is approximately the same amount Moldova will have to pay next year in interest on its public debt.
“Look at this coincidence. Through tax reform, the authorities want to collect 6 billion lei. That is exactly how much Moldova will have to pay next year on its loans. Now it’s clear why the ‘yellow’ government is introducing new taxes. For six years they accumulated debt, bought property abroad, built villas, and paid millions to people close to them. Now they want ordinary citizens to foot the bill for their celebration,” said the former Bashkan of Gagauzia.
Vlah also pointed out that Moldova’s state budget deficit has reached 21 billion lei, arguing that the government intends to finance this gap through additional borrowing. In her view, the country has entered a vicious cycle in which new loans are being used to service existing debt while the overall debt burden continues to grow.
According to the politician, Moldova’s public debt increased by 10 billion lei during the first five months of the year, reaching a record 143 billion lei. If current borrowing continues at the same pace, she warned, the amount borrowed within a single year could eventually match the country’s annual budget deficit.
Vlah further claimed that by 2027, Moldova could become the first European country whose public debt equals the estimated value of all state-owned assets—approximately 157 billion lei.
She also criticized the structure of the government’s borrowing. For the first time in Moldova’s history, she noted, loans with floating interest rates account for 61.1% of the public debt, exceeding the share of fixed-rate loans. According to Vlah, this exposes the national budget to greater financial risks.
In addition, she said that 95.8% of domestic government securities mature in less than one year, exceeding what she described as the critical threshold of 90%.
“I call on the authorities to stop the tax reform. Those 6 billion lei can be found without reaching into people’s pockets. Ban new borrowing, cut unnecessary spending, and shut down the money pipelines at state-owned enterprises. PAS, it was you who pushed Moldova into a debt trap. You should be the ones paying for it,” Vlah concluded.
She argued that the government could save around 7 billion lei annually simply by eliminating unjustified public expenditures. Vlah also called on the next government to impose a moratorium on new borrowing, begin negotiations on restructuring Moldova’s debt, reduce unnecessary spending, and reform state-owned enterprises, which she described as benefiting only a narrow circle of insiders.
It should be noted, however, that Vlah’s public statements have previously been criticized by fact-checkers for containing misleading claims. In May 2026, for example, her assertion that she had secured the cancellation of taxes on luxury property was challenged as conflating different types of taxation and taking credit for legislative changes that had already been planned. Critics also noted that the luxury tax threshold—properties worth more than 3.5 million lei and larger than 120 square meters—had been designed from the outset to apply only to high-value real estate rather than ordinary homes.
