Defence Minister Anatolie Nosatîi said on 21 October that Moldova’s first military factory would not be financed by the state. Construction, if it happens, would be a private investment. The government is preparing a defence-industry law; the factory is not yet on a building site.

“This is commercial activity, industry in which business takes part. The state must not occupy itself with factories. That is clear. And the examples show that private enterprises are more successful,” Nosatîi told TV8. The ministry is trying to attract foreign investors with experience in the field. Until then, he added, “it is a long road.”

The announced law is not only about drones. The minister spoke of any dual-use production that can serve defence — equipment and ammunition for the Armed Forces. The legislative proposal is due “shortly.” A framework announcement is not a plant already built.

Talk of a military industry in Moldova has circulated for several weeks, including in Parliament. TV8 writes that PAS is ready to vote such a law, and that the opposition criticises the initiative. An unnamed extract, reported by the channel, says a drone plant would be “very dangerous” and that production “will not be for us,” but for supplying the Ukrainian armed forces. The speaker of Parliament had earlier denied that the factory would make drones for Ukraine while the Moldovan army still needs modernising. Neither the criticism nor the denial stands in for a statute.

A day earlier, on 20 October, Lilian Carp, chair of the parliamentary committee on national security, defence and public order, told Telex.md that the law was still being waited for: after adoption would come a strategy, then partners and sites outside cities. Constitutional neutrality, Carp added, does not mean passivity. That is his reading. It is not Wednesday’s vote.

The two days should not be mixed. Carp was talking about a text still in draft. Nosatîi said, the next day, that the state would put no money into a factory and that the law was coming soon. Neither statement fixes a site or opens a production line.

Source consulted: Moldova’s first military factory: Anatolie Nosatîi explains why the state will not finance construction — TV8.md.

Image: participants in the “Eurasian perspective” forum visiting Moldova’s Parliament, 2 August 2019, Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, public domain (Flickr PDM), Wikimedia Commons. The parliament building, not a military factory.

Sources consulted: Moldova is preparing a defence industry, but the law is still being waited for — Telex.md.