16 November: Investigation commission presents its final report into the activities of Open Dialog foundation. Source: parliament.md.Moldova’s parliament recently accused two influential opposition parties of engaging in subversive anti-government activity, and the parties themselves of illegally accepting foreign funding. The formal grounds for this accusation was the opposition’s collaboration with the European “Open Dialogue Foundation” NGO, which parliament claims is being financed and led by the Russian security services. The Moldovan government is now proposing to review the regulations on the funding of political parties and NGOs, and initiate a criminal investigation into opposition activities.
The Moldovan parliament’s official report into the activities of Open Dialogue is the authorities’ response to the European parliament’s latest criticism of the government and its de facto head, oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc.
What happened?
On 16 November, the Moldovan parliament examined the final report of its own investigative commission, which had researched the “circumstances behind the intervention of the Open Dialogue Foundation in Moldova’s internal politics”. This document, unprecedented in both essence and content, was approved by members of the Democratic Party of Moldova’s parliamentary majority, which is controlled by Vladimir Plahotniuc. Members of both the Democratic Party and the Party of Socialists, a pro-Russian party which works in collaboration with the authorities, were represented on the investigative commission.
