WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS
The Moldovan parliament voted early this morning to impose a national state of emergency for 60 days, starting on December 16, due to the expected interruption of Russian gas supplies from January 1 next year, Al Jazeera Balkans reports.
Of the 101 parliamentarians, 56 supported the measure in a vote just after midnight, following a call by Prime Minister Dorin Recean to approve a state of emergency to secure the necessary gas for Moldova's separatist region of Transnistria.
It was a vote to end "gas blackmail" from Moscow, he said.
The declaration of a state of emergency allows the government to react quickly and curb energy exports.
Moldova receives Russian natural gas via Ukraine, which has said it will not renew its transit contract with Russian gas giant Gazprom. The contract expires on December 31, 2024.
“Putin wants to hold the population of Transnistria hostage”
Recean claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to leave the population of Transnistria without gas and electricity and hold them hostage”.
- Moscow is doing this to destabilize the situation in Moldova - he assessed.
Moldova receives about two billion cubic meters of gas a year from Russia, and from 2022 there has been an agreement that all Russian gas will go to Transnistria.
Transnistria, which does not have international recognition, declared its own state of economic emergency on Tuesday.
Recean said that the issue of transit through Ukraine is an “artificial problem” because Russian gas could move via other routes.
However, the deliveries could be questionable because Gazprom in talks has linked the continuation of deliveries via alternative routes to its demands that Moldova pay the debt for past deliveries, which according to Russian calculations amounts to $709 million.
