On July 21 Vasile Tofan presented his cabinet and government program to parliament for a vote of confidence. At the time I wrote about his choice of ministers as well as his presentation to parliament. Today we’re going to take a deep dive into the Tofan government’s program of government and see what it can tell us about how the new Prime Minister plans to deliver on PAS’ election promises.
“European Economy, Efficient State”
That’s the title of the new program, which opens with a vision statement about economic development saying that Moldova must be “the most business friendly country in Europe.” Before getting into how the new Prime Minister plans to accomplish this, it is worth noting that this document is long. Really long.
At 147 pages “European Economy, Efficient State” is just a few pages short of double the combined length of the 3 former PAS government programs. Here are links to my deep-dives into those past programs for reference:
“Moldova of Good Times” (41 pages), Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita
“Moldova: Prosperous, Safe, European” (21 pages), Prime Minister Dorin Recean
“EU, PEACE, DEVELOPMENT,” (15 pages), Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu
In addition to being longer, this program is structurally completely different than its predecessors. In fact it reads like a document from an entirely different genre.
Prime Minister Gavrilita’s program was fundamentally a political document, it hewed closely to the PAS electoral program and reorganized those promises in terms of ministerial competencies. Recean’s program represented a hard pivot to refocus the government on national security in the context of the war and to remove lots of outdated COVID related activities. Munteanu’s program was notable for how short it was - there was no problem statement, analysis of the current situation or political rhetoric. It contained 16 thematic areas like “European integration” and “Affordable health” and then a short bulleted list for each area. These bullets were sometimes hard targets like “modernized 3000 km of roads” and often aspirations or ideas to be explored.
Prime Minister Tofan’s government program is an entirely different beast. It reads more like a results-based management framework. The document is filled with baseline metrics from 2024 or 2025 and then specific targets of where the government hopes to get by 2029. The implication is that Prime Minister Tofan has set targets for the ministries and he plans to hold them accountable.
Simultaneously, this is a clear invitation to the public to hold his government to its promises.
Structure
After setting out a vision, the program begins with a lengthy problem statement called “The Reality We Start From.” Anemic economic growth, labor shortages, shrinking tax base, a pension system under pressure, poverty, bloated bureaucracy, poor services, unequal access to infrastructure, climate change threatening agriculture, etc. Each of these problems is tied to opportunities that can be realized by major reforms, but the main threat is identified as “inertia.” The implication is that these problems have been known for a long time and never addressed, but that time is running out and they must all be tackled head on now.
Following this problem statement, the program sets out 5 priorities for the government as follows:
Relaunching economic growth
Accelerating accession to the European Union
An efficient, digital and accountable state
Security, justice and peace firmly defended
Increasing the quality of life and social cohesion through decent jobs and human capital
Each of these priorities is followed by 5-8 bullet points outlining actions to be taken in these areas. All together, this gets us 18 pages into the program and sets out a clear direction of travel. What comes next from pages 19 - 147 are sector specific policies in great detail. I’ve pulled out a few of them that are particularly interesting or highlight a new approach below, but first, let’s look at some…
Big Picture Takeaways
Here are a few high level takeaways from this program:
It is very candid about dysfunction and failure. Each section begins with a blunt analysis of what is not working and then outlines steps to fix things. It does not shy away from calling out serious dysfunction and seems totally unbothered by the fact that PAS has been in power for 4 years. It’s a prognosis and plan of action - not a political whitewash.
EU integration is not a chapter - it is the skeleton holding it all together. Every single section from Economics to Infrastructure to Culture is organized in terms of EU integration. The program does not treat EU integration as another task list, but as a process that will have impacts across every level of government and life.
The focus is on quantifiable actions. Targets with specific dates for completion are all over this document. Deficits to fall by 2% of GDP by 2029, shrinking of rural to Chisinau schools math performance gap by 1/3, etc. The document is numbers heavy and spends a lot of time explaining where we are and where we are going.
Initiatives are bundled for easier communications. In a number of cases very complex reforms and activities are bundled into big-name programs like “Model Schools,” “Tourism 2029,” a new “Country as a Service” digitization program, etc. The document is highly technical but also built around communicating the work that they plan to do.
The approach changed, the content didn’t. Most of the promises and targets set out in the Munteanu program are unchanged. What is different is the level of detail, the figures and deadlines and the structuring of all of these reforms in EU integration terms.
The “Once Only” Principle as a cross cutting theme. The program commits to move the government to a place where the state will only ever ask information from a citizen one time. While this sounds simple, it is the strongest commitment in this document to reducing bureaucracy and saving time. In essence, it envisions a common data storage system between all state agencies and levels of government. I’ll explain how this works in practice in a footnote digression1.
Moldova - Small but Fast. That through-line is all over the document. The analysis is that Moldova is small, far behind its neighbors and lacking in any meaningful natural resources. Given that, the competitive advantage the country can build is speed. Simple regulations, highly digitized, easy to do business. This is how the Tofan government wants to make the country more competitive, grow the economy and deliver a European quality of life.
Taken together, this program does not outline a major new set of policies, it reorganizes the PAS electoral program and policies into a new framework. This framework is quantifiable, time bound and structured to invite accountability2 and bound by a real through-line.
If EU integration is the goal then a small, highly accountable and very fast state is how Moldova gets there.