Weekly Roundup: France Reaffirms Support for Moldova
March 11, 2025
On March 10 - 11 President Sandu traveled to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron at his invitation. During her working visit the 2 leaders discussed Moldova’s path towards EU membership as well as European security. In her remarks President Sandu stated:
“Today, our continent faces the most serious security threat in 80 years – a tragic moment in European history.
The only way to the future is together – united by our vision for lasting peace.
Peace does not mean capitulation. Peace is not an armistice that merely postpones aggression. Peace needs solid and credible guarantees.
Ukraine needs guarantees. Europe needs guarantees. We all need guarantees – so that the next ceasefire is not just a prelude to another war.
Moldova has learned from its own experience that Russia breaks every promise. It promised to withdraw its illegal troops from our territory by 2002 – it did not. It stopped gas supplies, violating its own contractual obligations. It imposed embargoes on Moldovan products, ignoring trade agreements. It interfered in our elections, defying the basic principles of bilateral relations. These are not isolated acts – they are instruments of a modern imperialism, which seeks to keep nations within its sphere of influence.
I fully agree with President Macron: the innocence of the last 30 years is over.”
During the visit to the Élysée Palace France and Moldova signed 3 separate agreements. France agreed to invest €30 million euros into efforts at improving the energy efficiency of buildings in Moldova. They signed an agreement between Moldova’s Center for Strategic Communication and Combating Disinformation and France’s VIGINUM1 on supporting Moldova in combatting disinformation. Additionally they signed an agreement increasing social protections for Moldovans living in France.
Other Foreign Affairs News:
Here’s a roundup of the other stories in foreign affairs of the week:
The European Parliament passed the €1.9 billion euro economic aid package for Moldova. This record breaking support package provides a mix of grants and long term loans for Moldova to invest in various modernization programs - including a massive injection of capital to digitize government services and support the retraining of civil servants. The package must receive final approval from the European Council and funds are expected to begin flowing in April.
The European Parliament approved the opening of a representative office in Moldova. This decision will bring closer coordination between Moldova and the EU Parliament and provide other areas of diplomatic support to Moldova.
Trump mentioned Moldova during his address to Congress. Trump rattled off a list of allegedly wasteful programs and mentioned “$32 million for a left wing propaganda operation in Moldova” in between $8 million dollars for making mice transgender2 and $10 million dollars for male circumcision in Mozambique. It’s not clear what Trump was referencing specifically about USAID’s work in Moldova. It caused a bit of a comical stir here because Moldova doesn’t have a very clear left-right political spectrum but the parties that are called “left wing” are pro-Russian (Socialists, Communists, Shor, etc). It was also noted here that in other recent Trump / Musk X’s the total was $22 million leading people to wonder why the total was growing.
Romania’s Presidential Election Starts to Boil Over
In Bucharest the Central Election Bureau barred Călin Georgescu from running in the do-over presidential elections in May. In a 10-4 vote the bureau cited the Romanian Constitutional Court’s decision to cancel the first round in their conclusion that Georgescu does not respect the constitution and has “violated the very obligation to defend democracy.” He can appeal this decision to the Constitutional Court.
Following the ban violent protests broke out with around 1000 Georgescu supporters throwing cobblestones at the police and the Central Election Bureau. They also set a tree on fire. The demonstration was eventually broken up with tear gas.
Georgescu responded to the ruling with on X with a post in English saying:
Following the decision George Simeon of the AUR party stated that members of the Central Election Bureau should be “skinned” before walking back the comments when a criminal case for incitement was opened.
Previously, on February 26th Georgescu was arrested and interrogated with regards to 3 criminal cases open against him related to illicit campaign financing, being a member of a fascist organization and taking actions against the constitutional order. Searches were also conducted targeting Georgescu’s head of security, former mercenary Horațiu Potra. They found weapons, ammunition and over $1 million dollars in cash. Media report Potra as being linked to Russia’s Wagner group.
Călin Georgescu recently gave an interview to disgraced Moldovan journalist Natalia Morari in which he railed against quote “Maia Soros-Sandu” and claimed that the whole Moldovan government was made up of agents of Alex Soros. He also claimed that Maia Sandu was interfering in Romania’s elections and that this whole Soros network was focused on destroying Christianity.
As a condition of his pre-trial release Georgescu is prohibited from making statements of an:
"anti-Semitic, legionary, fascist, racist or xenophobic nature, or which promotes, in public. the cult of persons guilty of committing crimes of genocide against humanity and war crimes, not to post/promote any such content on such platforms"
JD Vance and Elon Musk have been frequently X’ing in support of Georgescu over the past weeks.
Romania also announced the arrest of 6 people suspected of planning a coup with support from the Russian security services. The group, called the "Command of Vlad Tepes" included a 101 year old retired general. They allegedly planned on overthrowing Romanian democracy, install a dictatorship and renaming the country.
Economic Updates
This week Moldova was accepted into the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Going forward wire transfers to and from EU countries will take place at the same speed and with the same fees as those within the EU. That will reduce the fees from wire transfers from €20-200 euros to €1-2 euros. The National Bank estimates that this will save companies around €12 million euros / year.
Also this week the Finch credit rating agency has reaffirmed Moldova’s B+ rating. The agency noted Moldova’s low public debt (38.5% of GDP), low budget deficits and low borrowing costs (from the EU) in their rating.
That’s it for this week! I don’t remember a news week that was that light for a while and it was nice to take a moment and catch up on the crazy times in Romania. I’m sure the pause in news won’t last but while it does enjoy the good weather in Moldova!
France’s service for vigilance and protection against foreign digital interference
It’s still not really clear what Trump was talking about when he spoke about Transgender mice. Various outlets have reported that he or Musk’s team misunderstood “transgenic” as transgender and canceled a program genetically modifying mice as part of medical testing. The White House put out a statement later saying that he did mean transgender but they referenced research that partly focused on HIV drugs… so who knows.