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MOTTO: ‘They do nothing else but write projects, get external funding and spend that money. And they are accustomed to organize protests on this day of the year. But instead of organizing a protest, you better come, put your shoulder to the wheel and do something’, Andrian Candu, Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, 3 May 2018.
Andrian Candu has been the Speaker of the Parliament for only three years, thus the evolution of his communication with the press is easy to measure. Just as it is easy to measure the development of press freedom during 2015–2018. Media freedom in Moldova decreased by 5 points in just three years, according to the World Press Freedom Index. It is too much, given that up to 2015 Moldova’s ranking had been growing slightly. The degradation of press freedom by 5 points in just three years is even more dramatic if we take into account the pro-European commitments of the Moldovan government and multiple promises and declarations for the growth of democracy in Moldova, as well as the fact that the Parliament Speaker’s godfather Vlad Plahotniuc is the leader of the ruling party as well as the press mogul.
Why did the Speaker of the Parliament of the State associated with the European Union, chose namely the World Press Freedom Day to say that the protesting journalists do nothing else but receive external funding and protest? Let us read Candu’s message by phrases – there are four of them.
‘They do nothing else but write projects’. Abstracting from the word ‘else’ (to which we will refer in the context of the fourth phrase), we should pay tribute to Andrian Candu: the independent press and media NGOs do write project funding requests. Personally, I have been writing projects for about 20 years and this was the hardest management school I have ever experienced in my life. Writing projects is a thankless job: each donor institution has its specific forms, and the primary skill is to prove that you have done something of quality and transparent and that what you want to do is also transparent and useful for society. Project writing improves your skills to think and write in an organized and structured way, to look at organizations as a whole, in the context. A person experienced in writing projects has good managerial skills, knows how to draw up an activity plan, a budget plan, to look strategically at the field in which he/she operates. I recommend to teach such a subject at school, because lots things in our lives are projects: education, elections, democracy, development, professional growth or growth of Moldova in general.
‘Get external funding and spend that money’. I confirm. It is true. Unfortunately for these media institutions and for pro-European governance, the only possibility to get funding for independent media comes from outside, from European or American institutions, from European and American embassies. The Moldovan governments have never provided funding for the independent press, they have only taken care of those affiliated, to do their propaganda. Why would EU or US funding be bad or dangerous?
I wonder if Andrian Candu ever opened the website of the Parliament he leads. If he opened it, he would see that ... the website of the legislature was created on the basis of a grant from the European Union implemented by the Council of Europe! Besides, I heard no objections from the head of the legislature to multiple parliamentary assistance programs that have been funded from outside.
And on the website of the Government, headed by the party of Andrian Candu’s godfather, we find an Aid Management Platform. It contains information about the external funding obtained by the Moldovan public authorities. There is also a top of funding organizations. Do you know what are those? EU, USA, Swiss Agency for Cooperation, Italy, Netherlands, Czech Republic. Countries and agencies with good name, experience and high degree of democracy.
Maybe, however, media NGOs and media outlets protesting before Parliament receive grants from North Korea, Azerbaijan or other non-democratic countries? We open the page http://www.media-azi.md/ and see the same donors: EU, USA, Sweden, Germany. The ZDG donors are known as well and are listed in its Annual Activity Report: FPU from the Netherlands (EU) and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bucharest, NED from USA, Internews from USA, Freedom House from USA, Romanian government (EU).
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Let us refer a little to the ‘spend that money’ phrase. I'm sure that Candu (as an economist and lawyer) knows that grant funds provided by European and American institutions may be spent only on the basis of a grant agreement, and the grant agreements offered by such serious institutions and states contain dozens of clauses, designed to not admit even the slightest illegality. As an economist and lawyer, Candu knows that each grant dollar or euro paid out in the form of a salary in Moldova provides for a dollar or a euro transferred in the form of taxes in the state budget of the Republic of Moldova. Grants mean salaries, jobs, taxes, public budget revenues, transparency, European norms in the Republic of Moldova. That is why I did not understand why the main Moldovan lawmaker criticized grants.
‘And they are accustomed to organize protests on this day of the year’. Yes, I absolutely agree, in the last three years, free press protests have been organized in front of the Parliament every year. But it is not us who are accustomed to organize them, it is the governance that makes us do it. It happens because the Press Freedom Index has decreased dramatically over the last three years. Citizens, including journalists, have to defend their freedoms, for which they fought for 25 years.
Why did journalists started protesting again three years ago? No media protests were organised in 2015, given that Moldovan press freedom indicators have slightly increased in the previous year.
In 2016 the worsening became evident, since instead of going up in the Press Freedom ranking, Moldova had gone down by a few points. The constraints for the free press have become increasingly apparent: more and more difficult access to information, the growing concentration of the media under political auspices. At the beginning of May 2016, free journalists and media NGOs organized a protest in front of the Parliament. Andrian Candu came out in front of journalists, asked for a list of problems and promised to help solve those. The list of media issues was vociferated loudly, under the slogan ‘Down with the party control’. Candu listened, and then nothing changed for the better.
In 2017, the press situation proved to be in an even more obvious decline. Moldovan Press Freedom Index sank even lower: free journalists and media NGOs complained about worsening of problems which should have been resolved during the few years of association with the EU. In May 2017, a mock cage was installed in front of Parliament as a symbol of isolation of free journalists in a situation where even more media outlets were controlled by party leaders and their acolytes. Andrian Candu once again came out in front of the journalists, said: ‘You know well that there is certain progress, that we consider to be progress’, promised to help solve the problems and left. Journalists remained struggling with limited access to information and economic obstruction.
At the end of April 2018, Ziarul de Garda (ZdG) organized a conference on access to information and reactivity of public authorities, inviting representatives of the press services of public institutions. While some ministries and public authorities took this invitation seriously, coming and participating actively in the discussion, the Parliament’s press service did not respond to the invitation, did not come, and did not even explain why. But let us move on to the next phrase.
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‘But instead of organizing a protest, you better come, put your shoulder to the wheel and do something’ Candu from Parliament building reproached reporters who were outside. Many of the protestants put their shoulders to the wheel of construction of Moldovan freedoms back when Andrian Candu's political biceps have only started to grow. In fact, before Candu came to Parliament, the independent media and media NGOs did their share in the development of media legislation, access to information, created databases, contributed to the opening of databases for all citizens, have developed and educated the public’s interest for monitoring the act of governance. Now, journalists have come out to protest against factors that complicate or undermine their work: political media concentration, party control over advertising, difficult access to public information.
I would recommend Andrian Candu, who is the chairman of the legislature of a state that has implemented thousands of projects covered by external funding worth millions of euros and the chairman of the legislature of a state that, despite European and American support, has a lot of problems in the area of citizens’ freedom, including freedom and the sustainability of the press, to learn from the European legislators. ‘Independent journalism is vital to hold states accountable and to monitor democratic processes’, Federica Mogherini said on behalf of the EU on 3 May 2018. This is why the EU offers funding to independent media, and why media NGOs and journalists are writing projects.
