Liliana Iaconi
Professional experience: Ministry of Finance, Head of Department; Government of the Republic of Moldova, Secretary General; currently a member of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.
LP: – Proponents of the reform argue that merging the mayoralties will create more efficient governing bodies. At the same time, critics fear that small villages may lose their “voice” and influence. How can the state guarantee that the reform will not result in the emergence of “forgotten” settlements?
– I will tell you my opinion as an official. On the one hand, it sounds good in theory: strong mayoralties. After all, a mayor’s office with 500 residents does not have access to investment funds, does not have sufficient income, not to mention the development of a settlement. No economic agent is interested in developing business in a small village, where there is no labor force, no infrastructure, and no basic public services. Therefore, it would indeed be theoretically correct to unite 3, 4, 5 such mayoralties.
Now in the law on consolidation, as well as in the law on the administrative-territorial structure of the Republic of Moldova, the threshold of 3,000 inhabitants is set for a settlement. To be honest, I think that in the current conditions 3,000 is too low. The target should be 3,500 and above.
Why? Because a small village cannot develop on its own: it cannot get access to budget funds, for example, from the National Fund for Regional and Local Development. It does not meet the selection criteria. To qualify for larger funds, for example, for water supply projects, you need a minimum of 1,000 farms. With 300 farms this is not possible. It is not profitable because the cost of building a water pipeline is too high.
One more thing: local public authorities can participate in different projects with EU funding, cross-border projects, etc. Again, one of the conditions is that the mayor’s office has a sufficient number of inhabitants. The EU does not finance projects in localities that are “barely breathing”.
In addition, I believe that competition may appear in a large mayor’s office. Competition for the position of mayor, for example, so that the best one wins, ideally. Competition for access to public positions, such as local council clerk. Councillors too – there will be competition, there will be the best of the best. This is a positive side.
The negative side is “forgotten” villages. The risk really exists. Now we are talking about the process of voluntary consolidation, and by the fall at the latest, there will be a procedure of normative unification, when the map of the Republic of Moldova will be “drawn”. And it is possible that some villages will indeed be “forgotten”.
If the draft, with which the government will come out in summer or fall, will not include specific criteria for supporting small villages, there will be no sense in this process. It should be stipulated in the law that a small village should be taken into account when the center of a new mayor’s office receives an investment.
That is, one cannot invest only in the administrative center or a larger village. There should be a fair formula.
In any case, a full balance will not be achieved – the advantage will always be on the side of the larger and stronger settlement. Decisions will be made taking into account the opinion of the residents of the entire united territory, but the larger village has more people, which means that its position will be dominant. The inhabitants of small villages will be in the minority.
Therefore, such risks should be taken into account in advance and clearly stated in the new law on the reform of administrative-territorial organization.
It is necessary to provide for the participation of councilors in the elections – what will be their quota from the united settlements. So that it does not turn out that there will be five councilors from a larger village and one from a small one. We need to balance all this.
With any reform, there are those who are satisfied and those who are dissatisfied. This should be kept in mind.
LP: – Many citizens accept the idea of reform, but they are afraid of centralization of services – issuance of documents, social assistance, etc. What guarantees will citizens have that access to these services will not deteriorate?
– Social assistance through the Restart reform of the Ministry of Labor has long been centralized. The consequences of this ill-conceived reform are already affecting citizens. As far as I know, centralization reform in education is also underway. Same mistake, same tactic – “stepping on the same rake.”
The district chairman, mayor, councilors know best what is happening on the ground. Now they are excluded from this process.
As for the issuance of documents and other public services – cadastral certificates, identity cards, death certificates – people already have to go through a complicated way to the Agency of Public Services. For example, the issuance of death certificates has already been taken out of the competence of mayoralties and transferred to the ASU. But how can an elderly woman, whose husband died at home, go to the district center to get this document? It can be 20, 30 or even 40 kilometers. For many people this is a really serious problem.
In the reform concept presented by the State Chancellery, there is nothing specific about decentralization or centralization of these services. That is, they themselves do not yet know what will happen to these services. Who will work in the City Hall? Who will communicate with the citizens? There are a lot of unknowns.
We have been saying since last year: present the reform, present the concept, let’s discuss it in advance. But this has not happened. You cannot carry out a reform in a hurry, as in the late 90s. A lot of things were done blindly then. For 20 years, from 2003 to 2023, the Audit Chamber audits still found irregularities in accounting, property accounting, land accounting, etc.
Unfortunately, we still do not learn from mistakes and continue to repeat them.
We don’t have any safeguards and I can’t say there will be any. I have not seen anything concrete in the concept of the State Chancellery: neither about the revenues of mayoralties, nor about taxes, nor about transfers, nor about funds, nor about guarantees of financing, nor about powers at the local level. Therefore, there is no need to talk about guarantees.
LP: – In the Republic of Moldova there is distrust in the reforms imposed from above. How are mayors and residents convinced that amalgamation is necessary first of all for themselves? And is it really a voluntary reform?
– The amalgamation law was passed in 2023. It has not been sufficiently explained – and in simple and understandable language for mayors and residents.
Only at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year they started to talk about the fact that we are waiting for a regulatory amalgamation, i.e. actually a new administrative redrawing of the country’s map. The mayors began to take a more active interest in the process, looking for information. And very many of them – out of fear, out of fear that later they will be united with those with whom they themselves do not want to unite – began to initiate voluntary amalgamation.
In most cases, the situation looks something like this: “I would rather unite myself as I see fit than be forcibly joined to a neighbor with whom I do not want to be together.
Another part of the mayors went for unification simply because they were told that it was necessary. There are also those who really want to try this version of the reform, but even they are sometimes told: “no, it won’t work this way, but it will work this way”.
Distrust really exists. Many mayors and district chairmen are afraid: what will happen if they have already made a decision on unification, created a working group, advanced in the process, conducted surveys of residents, organized sociological research – and then someone from the center will come and cancel everything just because someone will not like it? There are indeed such fears.
Is this reform voluntary? Yes and no.
LP: – Experts say that the problem lies not only in the large number of mayoralties, but also in the lack of specialists and financial resources at the local level. Where will more qualified personnel come from?
– Let’s start with competition. Let’s imagine a large village with about 4 thousand inhabitants, where the mayor is already on his seventh or eighth mandate. Everything seems to be fine: there are investments, since the village is large, there is constant access to the ruling parties. Everything looks beautiful.
At the same time, a cadastral specialist has ten grades of education. But such a position requires basic professional knowledge. Or, for example, the secretary of the local council with pedagogical education prepares all the documentation of the mayor’s office. Or a librarian works as a chief accountant. With all due respect to these professions, these are paradoxical situations.
And the shortage of personnel is observed even in large villages. And I know what I’m talking about.
And yet I hope that there will be competition and the best specialists will be selected. I really hope so. And when, for example, a competition for the position of chief accountant is announced, a person with economic, accounting education, knowledge in the field of audit and so on will come to it.
LP: – What will actually change after the consolidation of settlements, apart from the fact that the administrative map will change?
– I will answer how it would have to work. A large locality has the potential, among other things, to expand the powers of the mayor – so that he is not only involved in the day-to-day management of local affairs. For example, so that he has the ability to make certain specific decisions in the field of local tax policy. This already depends on the Ministry of Finance – what kind of powers will be given to the mayor.
If, for example, the mayor is given the ability to set certain exemptions or derogations from the basic tax rate, this will help attract investors. He will be able to take initiatives on the use and development of municipal property.
Now there are abandoned schools, vocational schools, clubs, halls – objects that need something to be done with, including through attracting investors.
LP: – You reminded me of the German system – the system of “lands”, where the lands have broad powers and autonomy in decision-making, including the collection and distribution of taxes and the use of funds.
– It is impossible to exist only by renting lands of the mayor’s office. Especially since these lands are no longer plentiful. I have land, I have real estate. I attract an investor – so give me the opportunity, if I attracted him, for example, to exempt him for three years from 50% of the corporate income tax. Give me the opportunity to subsidize five jobs. In other words, there are certain tools that need to be thought through.
But I am afraid that now, when we are actually in the second half of May, it is too late for the reform to take effect on January 1, 2027.
LP: – There are suspicions in the public space that the reform may have both political and electoral effects in the context of local elections in the fall of 2027. Do you think that consolidation could give an advantage to certain parties in the upcoming elections? If yes, in what way?
– Both I, as chairman of the commission, and my colleagues in the faction have repeatedly asked not to politicize this process. Involve the residents in it. Involve the mayors. Just don’t politicize it. If you lack resources or expert support, say so, and we are ready to help. We have mayors with a lot of practical experience in our team, and we are open to cooperation. But, unfortunately, no one has ever approached us.
Unfortunately, the political factor is really present in this process, and not in a good way. We categorically condemn such interference. It is necessary to give the mayors the opportunity to do their work in peace. Where they need support – to help them; where they lack knowledge or experience – to train, counsel and work together with them, not to create additional obstacles.
LP: – What will happen to the staff of smaller city halls? Are there already estimates of possible staff reductions?
– There are no estimates yet. It is not known what the new staff structure will be, how many positions will be retained and what functions will remain at the local level.
Of course, there is a risk of job losses. Any city hall has a basic staff: the secretary of the local council, an accountant, a cadastral specialist, a local tax and fee collection officer, and a few other employees. In total, this is about 5-7 staff units.
But these positions are not fully staffed in all mayoralties. There are cases when one accountant manages two, three or even four mayoralties at once. And there are mayoralties where there is no accountant at all – then all the financial work is either handled by the mayor himself, or the documents are transferred to the financial department of the district center.
The possibility that some employees may lose their jobs does exist. On the other hand, after the merger, the volume of financing and the number of operations going through the Mayor’s Office will increase, so it cannot be ruled out that in some cases not one, but two accountants or two cadastral specialists will be needed. Although, in my opinion, such situations will be few.
At the same time, people will still have the opportunity to retrain themselves. For example, an accountant will be able to take courses organized by the Ministry of Finance, get an auditor’s certificate and then work as an auditor for several mayoralties at once. Why not?
LP: – The administrative reform has been discussed in Moldova for many years, but no government has ever finalized it. Why do you think it should be different now?
– The main difference is that Moldova has obtained the status of a candidate country for accession to the European Union. Besides, we have a strategy of public administration reform, within the framework of which the government officially committed itself to administrative and territorial reform as early as in 2023.
The 2024 report of the European Commission for Enlargement for the first time explicitly mentions the need to revise the administrative-territorial structure of Moldova. And the 2025 report states in more detail that the government should undertake a full-fledged administrative-territorial reform.
Most likely, municipalities, districts and large communes will be preserved in the new system. Let’s see – maybe something good will come out of it.
