Wherever a territory is integrated into a production or logistics chain—however modest or dependent it may be—it survives. Wherever such integration is absent, it is replaced by transfers, and these transfers do not fill the void but merely preserve it.
The Moldovan Reality: A Debate Over Form with Invisible Substance
It is precisely from this perspective that we should examine the document issued by the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova (CALM)—“Conceptual Foundations of CALM’s Vision and Proposals for Local Public Administration Reform.”
This is an important document. Moreover, in many respects, it is far more honest than the official government rationale for administrative reform.
CALM rightly points out that cause and effect must not be confused: the poverty of small municipalities is often not the cause of the crisis, but rather the result of excessive centralization of resources. The document rightly criticizes mechanical amalgamation, warns of the risk of eliminating local democracy, and insists on voluntarism, asymmetric decentralization, intermunicipal cooperation, financial autonomy, and the protection of local authorities from political pressure.
The Congress also correctly points out that the 2024 census debunks the myth that “the big grow, the small disappear”: in reality, only the capital and its immediate suburbs are growing, while depopulation affects large district centers and villages equally, regardless of size.
This is the document’s strength. It protects local governments from administrative overreach. It argues that one cannot simply take poor villages, lump them together into one large pool of poverty, and call that efficiency.
In this sense, CALM is doing important work—it brings the concepts of autonomy, subsidiarity, financial independence, consultation with citizens, and respect for local democracy back into the discussion.
But this is precisely where the main question arises: is this a strategy for territorial development?
No. In its current form, it is more of a strategy for protecting and modernizing local public administration. It is a document about how to preserve mayoral offices, redistribute powers, ease pressure from the center, and make the reform less disruptive.
All of this is necessary. But it is not enough to bring the region to life.
The problem is that CALM mainly answers the question: How should local government be structured? But the question of development is different: How will the region generate revenue, jobs, added value, and a future?
These are different questions. And if we confuse them, we’ll once again end up with a nice-sounding reform lacking economic substance. Only this time, it won’t come in government packaging, but in a softer, more democratic, and municipal form.
The country needs an economic map of Moldova
The CALM document speaks at length about decentralization, financial autonomy, local taxes, revenue sharing, the development of inter-municipal cooperation, the municipalization of central cities, regionalization, and e-governance.
More taxes can be retained locally. That’s the right approach. But if there is no local economy to generate those taxes, the local budget will become little more than a stark reflection of poverty.
This is the main difference between administrative reform and territorial development. CALM offers management tools. But it does not offer an economic map of the country. And that is exactly what Moldova needs.
We need not only a map of districts, mayoral offices, and future municipalities, but also a map of functions: where the agro-industrial zone is, where the logistics zone is, where the wine-making-tourism zones, where the industrial and repair zones are, where the border trade zones are, where the university and innovation zones are, where the energy zones are, where the deep-processing zones are, where the capital’s service areas are, and where the territories that could become independent growth poles are.
Without such a map, any talk of municipalization remains up in the air. CALM proposes strengthening central cities and transforming them into municipalities, which should become poles of development.
At the level of administrative concept, this makes sense. But a development hub does not emerge simply by being granted a status. If a regional center was a weak city with a declining industrial sector, trade instead of manufacturing, and an outflow of young people, the status of a municipality alone will not transform it into an economic hub. A sign on the city hall building does not create added value.
Each territory needs its own scenario. A one-size-fits-all administrative solution does not cure different ailments; it merely formalizes the diagnosis neatly.
The weakness of the economic section of the CALM document is that it remains too general. It contains correct statements about the decentralization of economic instruments, local economic policy, business monitoring, statistics, access to credit, and the promotion of initiatives.
But the most important element is missing: the link between a specific territory, its resources, its lost or potential functions, and a specific investment package.
An agricultural zone needs warehouses, cold storage facilities, processing plants, laboratories, water, energy, certification, cooperation, and export logistics.
An industrial city needs land, utility networks, energy, skilled labor, an industrial site, a tax regime, and investor protection.
A tourism zone requires sanitation infrastructure, roads, hotel facilities, small businesses, a regional brand, and heritage preservation.
A border zone requires terminals, customs infrastructure, transportation connectivity, trading platforms, and warehouses.
Otherwise, the strategy turns into a set of well-meaning administrative intentions, and in Moldova, well-meaning intentions usually end with a working group, three subgroups, a donor seminar, and a report on the need for the next report.
Financial autonomy, as CALM rightly points out, is not the same as development. If a region relies on trade, public sector employees, migration, raw-material-based agriculture, and transfer payments, then even a more equitable distribution of taxes will not create a new economic hub.
It can provide oxygen. But oxygen is no substitute for a heart. The same applies to digitalization, e-government, a “single window,” and access to databases.
Consequences if things remain as they are
The government says: Let’s reduce the number of city administrations, consolidate them, and provide digital services—that will lead to efficiency. CALM responds: Don’t eliminate city administrations; instead, provide decentralization, voluntary participation, associations, and financial autonomy.
But in both cases, one question remains unaddressed: what economic role will the region play after the reform?
If this question is absent, the debate is not about development, but about how to manage the deficit. One option proposes managing the deficit more strictly. Another proposes a more democratic approach that is closer to the people. The second option is, of course, better. But it, too, does not envisage long-term development, only the traditional politics of survival.
The practical consequences are predictable regardless of which of the two reform models prevails. Depopulation will continue: any new administrative structure—municipalities, NUTS 2 regions, inter-municipal development associations—without a productive foundation will reproduce the same dependence on the center, only on a larger scale.
And the political cost of the reform will be wasted: society will endure a painful restructuring of administrations, elections, a redistribution of powers, and emotional toll—only to end up with the same economic indicators five to seven years later, because it was the shell that changed, not the substance.
Comrat as a Test of the Theory
What would the CALM logic offer Comrat? Greater autonomy, greater financial rights, greater protection from the central government, more opportunities for intermunicipal cooperation, the potential status of a development hub, less administrative pressure, and more tools for local policy.
Comrat needs all of this. But will it solve its main problem? No, unless a new economic function is established in parallel.
Comrat already possesses virtually the entire set of institutional guarantees that CALM proposes as a remedy for the rest of the country: its own budget, a representative assembly, special legal status, a university, a road and infrastructure fund, and a direct channel for financing major infrastructure projects through autonomy—a model that the CALM document itself explicitly calls a model for the rest of the country.
If institutional autonomy is indeed the driving force behind development, Comrat should have long since become a showcase of success. This has not happened. Depopulation and economic depression in Comrat are no less persistent than in the average district center without any autonomy.
Comrat needs more than just a better mayor’s office. It needs a role in the economy of southern Moldova—not merely as the administrative center of the autonomous region, but as a hub for processing, logistics, agricultural technology, education, and exports.
Gagauzia has an agricultural base, but all too often remains a supplier of raw materials and semi-finished products. This means that the strategy must address not only the question of who governs, but also the question of where the added value remains.
Moldova needs a two-tiered approach. The first tier is what CALM addresses: autonomy, resources, authority, voluntary participation, protection of local governments, service cooperation, local democracy, and financial decentralization.
The second level is what is clearly missing from the document: a functional economic map of the country, territorial specialization, investment packages, clusters, production chains, human resources policy, and infrastructure tailored to economic functions.
That is precisely why the guiding principle of territorial development should be: function first—borders second. First, the economy—then authority. First, specialization—then strategy. First, the answer to the question of how a territory will sustain itself, and only then—a discussion of how it will be governed.
CALM has taken an important step: it has shown that mechanical amalgamation is not development. Now we must take the next step and acknowledge that even proper decentralization, in and of itself, is not development if it is not underpinned by the territory’s economic function.
Instead of an Afterword
Our series is not a critique, but an invitation to discussion. It is, first and foremost, linked to the obvious need to seek constructive, consensus-based approaches—ones that are crucial not only for local public administration bodies.
Moldova has failed for too long to answer a very important question: why? That is precisely why, for thirty years now, the country has been “moving furniture around” in a house that has no foundation. And this process is called reform.
The example of Comrat is particularly telling: there’s autonomy, a university, a foundation—and yet the population decline is exactly the same as that of its neighbors.
That sums up the entire cycle in a single sentence. But a single sentence can only identify the problem—it cannot solve it. To do that, we need further discussion, reflection, and exploration.
Eugen Perestoronin,
journalist, economic and political analyst
Dmitri Taraburca,
economist, expert in real estate and regional development
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