Administrative reform faces legal challenge
Viorel Furdui, executive director of the Congress of Local Authorities (CALM), has sharply criticised the administrative reform initiated by Chișinău, accusing the central authorities of pressuring local officials. He said the principal problem was the imposed deadline of 31 July, which had no legal basis.
“This date falls outside any lawful or legal framework because it is not stipulated by any regulatory act,” Furdui said in an interview.
He claimed that officials were placing unprecedented pressure on mayors, councillors and municipal secretaries to approve the required amalgamation decisions within an extremely short period.
CALM sent a letter to President Maia Sandu, Prime Minister Vasile Tofan and the prosecutor general demanding that legality be restored and the pressure stopped. The organisation said the administrative reform was based on a concept that had not been approved by any legal act.
According to the letter, the 31 July deadline represented “a serious abuse that strikes at local autonomy and the rule of law”. Furdui also said he had evidence that employees of the National Anticorruption Center had visited some mayors who had dared to express a different position.
Government rejects allegations of pressure
The authorities in Chișinău have rejected the accusations. Government state secretary Alexei Buzu said the 31 July deadline would not be extended and that a process of regulatory, or compulsory, amalgamation would begin in August for municipalities that had refused to merge voluntarily.
Buzu said the administrative reform must be completed before the 2027 local elections. State Chancellery Moldova also said the process had sufficient financial backing and described allegations of pressure as “completely false”.
Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu accused the opposition of “alarming people” and obstructing amalgamation talks by spreading what he called false claims about a lack of incentives. Furdui, however, argued that any reform must reflect the interests of residents in smaller communities rather than merely reducing settlements to figures in official tables.
He cited the government’s requirement that each new administrative unit should have a minimum population of 3,000, saying no convincing justification had been provided for the threshold.
“For example, a figure has been set and this is another problem of at least 3,000. Three thousand. In some cases, reaching that number may require combining as many as ten villages simply because that target has been imposed,” Furdui said.
“There is practically no scientific, economic or financial justification for it,” he added.
Furdui’s criticism centres on both the legality of the timetable and the practical consequences for small settlements. He maintains that forcing municipalities to merge under an unapproved framework risks weakening local autonomy while leaving residents with little influence over decisions affecting their communities.
