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The social media in the Republic of Moldova has been flooded these days by a surging number of pictures of gas bills people uploaded once the energy price rises hit the market. The price hikes and the energy crisis are real, but Moscow and the Moldovan opposition are using them to undermine the pro-European government and its line of reforms.
The gas bucket challenge
The cascading reactions on Moldovan online media bring to mind the “ice bucket challenge” phenomenon of 2014, although at a much smaller scale. At the time, people all over the world posted on their social media accounts recordings of themselves pouring buckets filled with ice-cold water over their heads. The “game” was launched for a noble cause, namely raising funds to support medical research into the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease. The initiative eventually sank into irrelevance, becoming a simple form of mimicry stripped of purpose and performed only for the sake of a debatable online popularity.
This time around, disgruntled with their rising gas bills, some Moldovan citizens have been lured into one of the games of an opposition non-parliamentary party, which, ironically enough, is driven by an overtly pro-European ideology. The party has been hyping up a far-fetched comparison between a hypothetical reason for turmoil in the Republic of Moldova and the spark that triggered the latest wave of social unrest in Kazakhstan, namely the increase in the price for liquefied gas (LNG) which the Kazakh population favors as their favorite fuel source.
While the pro-Russian factions in Chișinău are only covertly trying to incite a protest, the former coalition allies of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) back in 2019 have been extremely vocal and speak of the need for people to take to the streets. Their main target is deputy prime minister Andrei Spînu, the man who struck the deal with Gazprom CEO, Alexey Miller, over a five-year contract the terms of which remain largely unknown to this very day.
The funny part about this mass social media hysteria is that a great number of government officials, company men or various public figures who are now complaining about their skyrocketing bills are living in sizable homes, that must have cost them a small fortune to purchase. Justice Minister Sergiu Litivenco has ridiculed this victimization campaign on his Facebook account: “Certain people’s propensity for victimization, blaming the government over the energy bills might actually do them more harm than good. Why? It’s obvious. Instead of publicity, they might attract the attention of integrity inspectors and prosecutors. Their tear-jerking posts reveal not just the energy bills, but also the size of their own dwellings. […] So I’d think twice when talking about “gas” if I were them.”
Besmirching Spînu and state-guaranteed liquidities for Gazprom
Deputy prime minister Andrei Spînu’s triumphant attitude after the contract with Gazprom was signed immediately backfired when citizens got their first gas bills. Lacking in both charisma and in popular support, mostly owing to a political background tied to the party of former prime minister Vlad Filat, Spînu quickly became “public enemy number one” and a scapegoat.
For weeks on end, his former colleagues from the Dignity and Truth Platform Party (PPDA) have been dragging Spînu’s name through the mud in televised talk shows or on social media, some them actually inciting large-scale public protests, more or less similar to the developments in Kazakhstan.
With such “useful instruments” at its disposal, Moscow doesn’t even need to mobilize its allied pro-Russian forces in Chișinău in order to turn up the pressure. For many months now, Pro-Russian forces seem to have grown quiet, still coping with the aftershock of losing the presidential election of 2020 and the early parliamentary election of 2021. In turn, the Russian propaganda in Chișinău has also made a forced association with Kazakhstan. The bigger issue is that Gazprom led a mostly one-way negotiation, given that it holds the majority package at Moldovagaz. Basically, deputy prime minister Andrei Spînu vouched for a deal whereby the government pledged to cover Moldovagaz’s cash-flow problems, and on top of that to make advance payments for Russian gas imports.
In the past, Moscow accepted to deliver natural gas as a form of credit, but now it insisted on introducing a down payment clause. Therefore, for the second time in recent months, Moldovagaz claims it has no money left in the bank, which is why the Government must foot the bill to the Russian holding. Whereas in November Moldova had to pay 74 million USD, this time around the bill will cost Moldova another 25 million USD. The Government is injecting cash which Moldovagaz should normally procure from its own sources. Still, it is the Government’s reputation that gets tainted.
All this while, Moldovagaz makes up excuses for not being able to secure bank loans because it owes 400 million USD to its parent-company, Gazprom, who claims, in turn, that total debts actually amounts to 709 million USD. The debt will be subjected to an audit, which is expected to shed light on any irregularities reported at Moldovagaz.
To add fuel to the fire, the very fire Spîinu lit up when he signed the deal in Saint Petersburg last fall, Moldovagaz director, Vadim Ceban, recently told a show on TV8 he “got scared” when he got his own gas bill of 5,000 Moldovan Lei (tantamount to some 250 Euro), given that his monthly salary is approximately 10,000 Euro.
Moreover, Ceban is playing Moscow’s tune, leaving Spînu to get all the heat by making him deliver all the bad news about Moscow’s plans in the energy sector. Another politician who got “scared” by his gas bill is the mayor of Chișinău, Ion Ceban, who is supported by Igor Dodon’s Party of Socialists.
Andrei Spînu is trying to justify his actions claiming that, unless he had signed the deal in Saint Petersburg, the Republic of Moldova would have paid 1,000 and even 2,000 dollars per thousand cubic meters of gas on the Spot market. It would be sensible observation, if one didn’t actually know that states negotiate their fixed-term energy contracts always in advance and never purchase gas on the Spot market, where there’s always room for speculation and the quantities are significantly lower compared to fixed-term contracts. No one buys large quantities of gas on the Spot market, and the Republic of Moldova this year needs approximately 3 billion cubic meters of gas, of which some 1.3 account for total input on the right-hand side of the Prut river, while the rest will go to the separatist region of Transnistria, which never paid a cent for its gas input. The Russians say Moldova needs to pay for this gas as well.
PAS seems unwilling to stomach the hard reality, which is why the party’s strategic communication merely highlights the significantly lower price compared to the Spot market as a justification for the authorities signing the contract with Gazprom according to terms dictated by the Russian side.
Ways to loosen Gazprom’s noose
Experts in Chișinău believe the connection between the price formula and the Spot market, which has seen great fluctuation and volatility in recent months, is but one of the many traps Russia sprung when it signed the contract with Moldova on October 30, 2021 in Saint Petersburg.
“I believe this is an unfavorable contract, that much is obvious. The fact that the EU decided to switch to Spot market gas prices was also a big mistake, considering that 45% of natural gas exports to Europe are delivered by Gazprom. Basically, if you shake hands with the Russians you expose yourself to serious blackmail. And here, we’re just collateral victims. I believe that we should steer clear of the Spot market and stick to the price formula that factors in oil prices, which neither Gazprom nor the Russian Federation can influence”, energy expert and former presidential advisor Sergiu Tofilat has told G4media.ro.
In turn, another expert, Victor Parlicov, claims that, now, in the eleventh hour, when it’s become obvious Gazprom is far more efficient than all the Moldovan opposition combined and is eroding people’s confidence in PAS, the country should look for alternative gas sources:
“Energocom (a state-owned energy enterprise, e.n.) should start looking for gas elsewhere and create alternatives for Moldovagaz PLC. This is the only solution… Although we have alternative answers and can import gas from other sources, we fail to capitalize on this alternative. What’s the use of having pipelines? What’s the use of having interconnections, if no one uses them to import gas?”
One of the solutions listed by Parlicov is importing gas via the Iași-Chișinău pipeline and reducing consumption by replacing gas in power plants with fuel oil, which can be procured in rather large quantities from Romania as well.
The energy crisis will rebound after the new energy price hikes
Apart from the major problems caused by its reliance on Gazprom, the Republic of Moldova might also face a new energy crisis very soon, due to the high price for electricity reported at the power plant in Cuciurgan, in the separatist region of Transnistria. Just as Gazprom owns Moldovagaz, the Russian company Inter Rao owns the power plant in Cuciurgan, the main source of electricity for the Republic of Moldova.
Electricity is transported to the Republic of Moldova by Premier Energy, which is registered as an offshore company based in Cyprus. The company has already increased its electricity prices by 1.8 times. Referring to the possibility that the Republic of Moldova might face a new crisis, minister Spîinu said he expected the price to soar in April, considering that the current contract between the Republic of Moldova with Cuciurgan is set to expire at the end of March this year.
In other words, Russia will continue to squeeze every penny from the Republic of Moldova in the energy sector, and will take full advantage of the energy crisis, one that many expect to deepen in Chișinău. This crisis will only amplify people’s mistrust in the current administration and its promised reforms, such as combating endemic corruption in the Republic of Moldova. Facebook campaigns such as the “gas bucket challenge”, backed by the pro-Russian propaganda and opposition parties alike, will merely add more fuel to the fire.
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