It's positive to see a multitude of opinions on the reform, especially from someone like Vasile Tofan. Unfortunately, I think there is a legal perspective which has not been considered in this proposal: a constitutional requirement that "districts" (what we call raions today) must exist (Art. 110) and must have a "district" council that is elected (Art. 113).
The idea of a single level of local government in Moldova is probably an admirable one to pursue over the long-term, but reforms are needed now in order to deliver services more efficiently to residents. A constitutional battle is unlikely to be one that can be carried out swiftly over the course of 2026. It would be great to instead see steady progress in 2026 and 2027 towards:
a) strengthening level 1 localities (reducing the number of local governments while still retaining local community identities), and
b) a reduction of level 2 districts to provide a better support service network to level 1 localities in the interim (while also getting rid of the raion Soviet legacy name).
Frank, thank you for a very thoughtful and well-argued comment.
On the legal point, I would nuance the interpretation slightly. The Constitution states that the territory is organized into villages, towns, and rayons, but it does not explicitly require that rayons must function as a distinct, empowered administrative tier with their own substantive competencies. Nor does it prescribe their structure or role. That leaves some room for interpretation - including the possibility of fundamentally rethinking this level, or reducing it to a more technical or deconcentrated function rather than a full layer of self-government. At the very least, I don’t think this constitutional constraint should be treated as absolute or beyond challenge.
More broadly, though, I would be cautious about allowing constitutional constraints to become an argument for a weak reform. If a constitutional change is indeed required to do this properly, then that is ultimately a healthy political test: where do parties in Parliament stand when it comes to a structural reform that will shape the state for decades.
I think we are aligned on the diagnosis - the current level of fragmentation is not working. The real question is whether we go all the way to a solution, or stop halfway. Experience from other countries, including Latvia, suggests that “politically feasible” but insufficient reforms tend to become interim steps rather than durable solutions.
Hi Frank - thanks for the thoughtful comment! Vasile may respond himself, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents here too. The constitution defines LPA categories but doesn't rigidly fix their structure. We see that in the past reforms that created the current rayons as well as your proposal to b) reduce level 2 districts. To my mind, the reform suggested by Vasile here runs into problems of semantics not law - the "municipalities" could in fact be rayons or whatever. Or, in another formulation, you could maintain a level 2 district structure but substantially disempower it in favor or local municipalities. In either case, I don't think we're talking about a constitutional change - just a shake up of where powers lie.
I personally fully agree with Vasile's point that "reform done halfway is reform done twice." I've also personally spent a lot of time in local mayors offices (including working in 1 for a year) and know firsthand how damaging their lack of capacity is.
I'm curious which path forward you favor. I read your point a) as voluntary mergers - a pretty tough lift. I'm curious what you envision more broadly though.
Thanks, David, would love to see Mr. Tofan's thoughts if he has time as I read the proposal as fully eliminating level 2 (raions/districts) based on the PPT presentation ("Structură simplă: fără nivel 2 regional politic inutil (i.e. fără raioane)") and only maintaining a single level of local government. This is where the constitutional concern lies as Art. 112 and Art. 113 does seem to make clear that there is a hierarchy with "districts" (raions) having multiple level 1 LPAs within their boundaries.
If I am more expansive in my thinking, I could see the Mr. Tofan's reform working 3 ways based on the PPT and your comment forcing me to broaden my thinking:
a) Take the "Baltic proposal" literally to mean there is no level 2 (per the PPT) - this would lead to a constitutional challenge in my view.
b) Take the "Baltic proposal" to mean municipalization - which looks like Chisinau expanded across the country (where there are 40-60 or so large municipalities covering the entire country that govern similar to Mun. Chisinau and the local governments within Mun. Chisinau). I suspect this might be what Mr. Usatii was also suggesting with his "municipalization" plan, but that is unclear to me as I haven't actually seen a proposal from him.
c) We deviate from the "Baltic" proposal and do something closer to what I intrepret you are proposing: which we have a much smaller number of level 1 LPAs, maintain level 2 LPAs at a smaller number, and de-emphasize the role of level 2 LPAs. If that is what you are proposing, then I think you and I are of similar minds.
I personally think if we're using the Baltic countries as an example, then we're missing that they did go through a period of voluntary reform to then be followed by normative reform. I call this "guided reform" - there is a timeline provided for voluntary, after which normative occurs. I favor this, and I believe it is the direction the Government is currently heading - albeit communication of this could be better. I'm a big believer in regional and local governments: I worked for 3 local/regional governments for about 6.5 years + 2 regional partnership organizations for about a year + have completed multiple projects with local/regional governments in the Middle East. Based on my interactions with local government officials in Moldova over the past 2.5 years, it is clear to me that a 4-5 person staff LPA in Moldova (including an elected mayor) is a disservice to both the hard-working staff [who are under-resourced relative to their legal mandate] and the residents who they are intended to serve.
So for me:
a) At minimum, the 1,500 legal minimum for LPA level 1 should be enforced - more than half of LPAs fall below this threshold, so that would be a huge reform. I think "guided reform" with a clear timeline (probably 6 months) for local governments below that threshold to determine how they want to merge up makes sense if we're going to respect the principle of local subsidiary. Obviously, that's still not sufficient to provide services at scale, but it would be a huge change-up in-and-of itself. My sense is for Moldova, scale of 10k+ is probably appropriate; with the above, you would probably get closer to 3-5K communities - but that's probably what the current politics allows.
b) Certainly agree changing the role of whatever exists at level 2 is necessary. This fits into a larger need of the form: a very clear delineation of responsibilities for level 1, level 2, and central government needs to be carried out - as what exists right now is a very unclear legal framework that is not reflective of what happens on-the-ground.
c) Practically speaking it would be great to see level 2 meet the NUTS3 min. size requirements of 150K, which leaves you with probably 5-8 level 2 at most (which would also see their names changed from raion to "district" or "growth region" or the like). I would probably turn level 2 into regional development coordinators rather than service providers (so they coordinate a regional development plan with the LPAs within the boundaries plus coordinate various regional events that don't have a natural home elsewhere).
d) Most other services would probably centralized (like primary health care and education) as even cities of 20-30K don't have enough economies of scale to provide efficiently. Over the longer term, you could potentially look to decentralize education and healthcare to level 2s as 150K+ is a decent size to provide such services.
e) Some additional fiscal decentralization should also occur to level 1: i) for instance, sharing additional VAT revenue makes sense - with a better formula than what exists today; ii) transferring responsibilities for parking planning and enforcement to level 1 rather than the Police probably also makes sense and that could be a new source of reference; and, iii) the ability to utilize eminent domain auctions (or some culturally appropriate version of this) is likely also needed to put unproductive lands/properties back into economic production.
Hi Frank - firstly, thanks for the detailed response! If you're the Frank that I assume you are, drop me an email if you want to write your own op-ed on the matter :)
Once again, we'll see if Vasile wants to jump in here. I let him know that an interesting conversation is taking place!
It seems to me that we agree that the constitutional question isn't central to the end goal - as you noted, there are lots of ways to get to the outcome. I think the more salient question is just how big do you go on this reform.
I really don't think that enforcing the 1500 limit goes anywhere close to far enough. Yes, it would make things a bit better - but for how long? The reason the limit is violated is because villages are constantly shrinking. Everyone talks about how they want to stop this trend - but it isn't going to stop. Moldova is among the most rural countries in Europe - by a HUGE margin. If the country gets wealthier it will drive more and more migration to urban centers (and suburbs). I think a series of small mergers just gets us back in the same place in a few years.
I think that whatever the politics, it makes more sense to think bigger than that. Short term, reforms are painful. Over the long term - the #1 problem this government has is the perception that they aren't doing the big things. Just my 2 cents :)
It's positive to see a multitude of opinions on the reform, especially from someone like Vasile Tofan. Unfortunately, I think there is a legal perspective which has not been considered in this proposal: a constitutional requirement that "districts" (what we call raions today) must exist (Art. 110) and must have a "district" council that is elected (Art. 113).
The idea of a single level of local government in Moldova is probably an admirable one to pursue over the long-term, but reforms are needed now in order to deliver services more efficiently to residents. A constitutional battle is unlikely to be one that can be carried out swiftly over the course of 2026. It would be great to instead see steady progress in 2026 and 2027 towards:
a) strengthening level 1 localities (reducing the number of local governments while still retaining local community identities), and
b) a reduction of level 2 districts to provide a better support service network to level 1 localities in the interim (while also getting rid of the raion Soviet legacy name).
Frank, thank you for a very thoughtful and well-argued comment.
On the legal point, I would nuance the interpretation slightly. The Constitution states that the territory is organized into villages, towns, and rayons, but it does not explicitly require that rayons must function as a distinct, empowered administrative tier with their own substantive competencies. Nor does it prescribe their structure or role. That leaves some room for interpretation - including the possibility of fundamentally rethinking this level, or reducing it to a more technical or deconcentrated function rather than a full layer of self-government. At the very least, I don’t think this constitutional constraint should be treated as absolute or beyond challenge.
More broadly, though, I would be cautious about allowing constitutional constraints to become an argument for a weak reform. If a constitutional change is indeed required to do this properly, then that is ultimately a healthy political test: where do parties in Parliament stand when it comes to a structural reform that will shape the state for decades.
I think we are aligned on the diagnosis - the current level of fragmentation is not working. The real question is whether we go all the way to a solution, or stop halfway. Experience from other countries, including Latvia, suggests that “politically feasible” but insufficient reforms tend to become interim steps rather than durable solutions.
Hi Frank - thanks for the thoughtful comment! Vasile may respond himself, but I thought I'd add my 2 cents here too. The constitution defines LPA categories but doesn't rigidly fix their structure. We see that in the past reforms that created the current rayons as well as your proposal to b) reduce level 2 districts. To my mind, the reform suggested by Vasile here runs into problems of semantics not law - the "municipalities" could in fact be rayons or whatever. Or, in another formulation, you could maintain a level 2 district structure but substantially disempower it in favor or local municipalities. In either case, I don't think we're talking about a constitutional change - just a shake up of where powers lie.
I personally fully agree with Vasile's point that "reform done halfway is reform done twice." I've also personally spent a lot of time in local mayors offices (including working in 1 for a year) and know firsthand how damaging their lack of capacity is.
I'm curious which path forward you favor. I read your point a) as voluntary mergers - a pretty tough lift. I'm curious what you envision more broadly though.
Again - thanks for the comment!
Thanks, David, would love to see Mr. Tofan's thoughts if he has time as I read the proposal as fully eliminating level 2 (raions/districts) based on the PPT presentation ("Structură simplă: fără nivel 2 regional politic inutil (i.e. fără raioane)") and only maintaining a single level of local government. This is where the constitutional concern lies as Art. 112 and Art. 113 does seem to make clear that there is a hierarchy with "districts" (raions) having multiple level 1 LPAs within their boundaries.
If I am more expansive in my thinking, I could see the Mr. Tofan's reform working 3 ways based on the PPT and your comment forcing me to broaden my thinking:
a) Take the "Baltic proposal" literally to mean there is no level 2 (per the PPT) - this would lead to a constitutional challenge in my view.
b) Take the "Baltic proposal" to mean municipalization - which looks like Chisinau expanded across the country (where there are 40-60 or so large municipalities covering the entire country that govern similar to Mun. Chisinau and the local governments within Mun. Chisinau). I suspect this might be what Mr. Usatii was also suggesting with his "municipalization" plan, but that is unclear to me as I haven't actually seen a proposal from him.
c) We deviate from the "Baltic" proposal and do something closer to what I intrepret you are proposing: which we have a much smaller number of level 1 LPAs, maintain level 2 LPAs at a smaller number, and de-emphasize the role of level 2 LPAs. If that is what you are proposing, then I think you and I are of similar minds.
I personally think if we're using the Baltic countries as an example, then we're missing that they did go through a period of voluntary reform to then be followed by normative reform. I call this "guided reform" - there is a timeline provided for voluntary, after which normative occurs. I favor this, and I believe it is the direction the Government is currently heading - albeit communication of this could be better. I'm a big believer in regional and local governments: I worked for 3 local/regional governments for about 6.5 years + 2 regional partnership organizations for about a year + have completed multiple projects with local/regional governments in the Middle East. Based on my interactions with local government officials in Moldova over the past 2.5 years, it is clear to me that a 4-5 person staff LPA in Moldova (including an elected mayor) is a disservice to both the hard-working staff [who are under-resourced relative to their legal mandate] and the residents who they are intended to serve.
So for me:
a) At minimum, the 1,500 legal minimum for LPA level 1 should be enforced - more than half of LPAs fall below this threshold, so that would be a huge reform. I think "guided reform" with a clear timeline (probably 6 months) for local governments below that threshold to determine how they want to merge up makes sense if we're going to respect the principle of local subsidiary. Obviously, that's still not sufficient to provide services at scale, but it would be a huge change-up in-and-of itself. My sense is for Moldova, scale of 10k+ is probably appropriate; with the above, you would probably get closer to 3-5K communities - but that's probably what the current politics allows.
b) Certainly agree changing the role of whatever exists at level 2 is necessary. This fits into a larger need of the form: a very clear delineation of responsibilities for level 1, level 2, and central government needs to be carried out - as what exists right now is a very unclear legal framework that is not reflective of what happens on-the-ground.
c) Practically speaking it would be great to see level 2 meet the NUTS3 min. size requirements of 150K, which leaves you with probably 5-8 level 2 at most (which would also see their names changed from raion to "district" or "growth region" or the like). I would probably turn level 2 into regional development coordinators rather than service providers (so they coordinate a regional development plan with the LPAs within the boundaries plus coordinate various regional events that don't have a natural home elsewhere).
d) Most other services would probably centralized (like primary health care and education) as even cities of 20-30K don't have enough economies of scale to provide efficiently. Over the longer term, you could potentially look to decentralize education and healthcare to level 2s as 150K+ is a decent size to provide such services.
e) Some additional fiscal decentralization should also occur to level 1: i) for instance, sharing additional VAT revenue makes sense - with a better formula than what exists today; ii) transferring responsibilities for parking planning and enforcement to level 1 rather than the Police probably also makes sense and that could be a new source of reference; and, iii) the ability to utilize eminent domain auctions (or some culturally appropriate version of this) is likely also needed to put unproductive lands/properties back into economic production.
Hi Frank - firstly, thanks for the detailed response! If you're the Frank that I assume you are, drop me an email if you want to write your own op-ed on the matter :)
Once again, we'll see if Vasile wants to jump in here. I let him know that an interesting conversation is taking place!
It seems to me that we agree that the constitutional question isn't central to the end goal - as you noted, there are lots of ways to get to the outcome. I think the more salient question is just how big do you go on this reform.
I really don't think that enforcing the 1500 limit goes anywhere close to far enough. Yes, it would make things a bit better - but for how long? The reason the limit is violated is because villages are constantly shrinking. Everyone talks about how they want to stop this trend - but it isn't going to stop. Moldova is among the most rural countries in Europe - by a HUGE margin. If the country gets wealthier it will drive more and more migration to urban centers (and suburbs). I think a series of small mergers just gets us back in the same place in a few years.
I think that whatever the politics, it makes more sense to think bigger than that. Short term, reforms are painful. Over the long term - the #1 problem this government has is the perception that they aren't doing the big things. Just my 2 cents :)
Informative and well-argued!