Moldova’s parliament voted to declare a state of emergency amid fears of a natural gas shortage this winter, according to ABC News.
A majority in the 101-member parliament voted in favour of the state of emergency on Friday. It will begin on 16 December and last for 60 days. A special commission will also take measures to manage “imminent risks” if Russia fails to supply gas to the Kuciurgan (Cuciurgan) power plant in the Transnistria region.
Prime Minister Dorin Recean stated that Moldova faced an “exceptional situation,” as the gas-operated Kuciurgan plant, which supplied electricity to a large part of the country, was owned by the Russian state-owned company Gazprom.
This must be the last winter in the country’s history in which we can still be threatened with energy.
In 2004, the station was privatised by Transnistrian officials and then sold to a Russian energy giant. However, Moldova did not recognise the privatisation. Recean added that cutting off natural gas supplies could provoke economic and humanitarian crises. But he vowed that no one in Moldova would be left “in the cold and dark.”
Transnistria, which seceded after a brief war in 1992 and remained unrecognised by most countries, also declared its own state of emergency this week in case the region did not receive gas supplies. However, Romania’s energy minister Sebastian Burduja declared on Thursday that his country had the resources to support Moldova “if the situation demands it.”
