Expert-Grup

Defence Spending Has Fallen Sharply in Recent Years

Wednesday, 27 April 20166612 views
Defence Spending Has Fallen Sharply in Recent Years

Automatically translated summary. The full article is available in Romanian.

Expert-Grup has published a new study analysing national defence spending in the Republic of Moldova between 2000 and 2014. It finds that defence financing has not been a national development priority and that allocations have dropped sharply since 2009, leaving Moldova last in Central and Eastern Europe by 2015.

The decline did not reverse after 2014, despite a sharp deterioration in regional security. Defence reforms and strategic planning documents were not completed over the past decade, so the structure of the National Army is outdated and not adjusted to new security realities and funding constraints.

Expert-Grup recommends gradually raising defence allocations to the regional average, adopting the National Military Strategy, the Military Doctrine and the White Paper on defence, and revising the army's structure. It also urges more capital investment in equipment and infrastructure, and greater budget transparency. Economist Iurie Morcotîlo, a study author, said that with 10% of territory outside central control, attitudes to national defence must change. The study was supported by the Soros Foundation-Moldova.

View the original article in Romanian