Igor Dodon

Tech War

A Romanian man passes in front of a shop window of an Orange store that displays a huge 5G advertisement banner, in Bucharest, Romania, 19 October 2020. Archive photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

After weeks of delays caused by pro-Russian political forces, parliament in Moldova on Thursday adopted an EU -sought law on NGO funding and activities with the support of 95 of 101 deputies.

Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu announced on Thursday that all economic activities would fully resume from June 30 onwards, despite continuing concern over the worrying situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country has registered 10,321 cases of infection and a death toll of 371.

Some Balkan and Central European countries are facing the risk of a second big wave of COVID-19 cases after lifting restrictive measures imposed to curb the pandemic - some say prematurely.

Moldova risks losing 30 million euros of 100 million euros in macro-financial aid from the European Union if its parliament fails to pass a law on the NGO sector seen as a condition for the release of the money.

Moldova's President has been criticised for sending soldiers to Moscow to join the Victory Day parade on June 24, despite the potential risks to their health in Russia - one of the worst affected countries in the world by COVID-19.

Moldova will send 75 soldiers to the Red Square parade, one of the largest number of soldiers ever used for such an event.

Moldovan authorities on Monday said they were scrapping the concession agreement for Chisinau international airport and moving to take it back into state ownership.

The Prime Minister, Ion Chicu, said the government had started the procedure of declaring the concession holder, Avia Invest, insolvent, meaning the cancellation of the agreement.

Support in the Moldovan parliament for Prime Minister Ion Chicu's coalition government is slipping away, as the Socialist Party, PSRM, and its Democratic Party, PD, allies now only hold 54 of the 101 seats in the legislature - a majority of three.

The opposition Pro Moldova parliamentary group appealed to the Constitutional Court on Thursday over the legality of a 200-million-euro loan from Russia, urging the judges to give a verdict urgently, as parliament was about to ratify the agreement.

President Igor Dodon and his Socialist Party colleagues have received favourable treatment on the main national television station in Moldova, Moldova 1, according to a study by the Centre for Independent Journalism in Moldova.

The study, conducted between March 9-15, monitored the main daily news bulletins as well as the most important political TV shows each day of the week.