Moldova’s parliament on Friday appointed Alexandru Munteanu, a 61-year-old economist with no experience in elected office, as the country’s new prime minister, cementing a pro-EU trajectory that critics say answers more to Brussels and Washington than to ordinary Moldovans.
Munteanu, who has never stood for public vote, was nominated by President Maia Sandu after her Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) secured 55 of 101 seats in last month’s snap election. The swift appointment—completed in under a week—bypassed any public consultation, fueling accusations that Moldova’s leadership is installing technocrats hand-picked by external donors rather than chosen by its citizens.
“We have a unique opportunity to become the government that will bring Moldova into the European Union,” Munteanu said ahead of the parliamentary vote.
“I wish you success in forming a government that will be able to gain the trust of parliament and meet the most important expectations of citizens: protecting peace, preparing the country for accession to the European Union, strengthening the economy, and improving people’s living standards,” President Sandu told the new PM.
Munteanu’s résumé reads like a Eurocrat’s dream: a physics graduate turned Columbia MBA, two decades at the World Bank—where Sandu also worked—along with stints in Paris and Kyiv investment banking, and directorships in Ukrainian and Belarusian firms. He holds Moldovan, Romanian, and U.S. passports and has spent more of his adult life abroad than in the country he now governs. Of those years abroad, Muntenau spent 20 living in Ukraine, where he founded the investment company 4i Capital Partners, operating in Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus. He left the country—not for Moldova, but for Romania—when Russia invaded in 2022.
Opposition MPs jeered during Friday’s debate that the new premier’s only mandate was a “coup by Brussels puppets,” based on “zero votes from the people,” and interrupted his speech with shouts of “Who elected you?” Even some PAS allies privately admit the appointment risks widening the gulf between a cosmopolitan elite and rural voters who still heat homes with wood and earn €400 a month.
After eight hours of parliamentary debate, the PM also had his cabinet, whose ministers will take their oaths on Saturday, November 1. Critics from opposition circles have labeled it a “farce” of recycled power, but pro-EU observers see it as a resilient win against external threats.
The new government’s program—titled ‘EU, Peace, Growth’—promises to open EU accession talks by 2028 and settle the Transnistria conflict, yet offers little to no detail on immediate policies on how to get a grip on the significant economic problems and high inflation in one of Europe’s poorest nations.
While former PM Dorin Recean brought security and crisis-management expertise, Munteanu, with his finance background, may shift toward investment-driven growth and private-sector involvement, potentially introducing fresh technocratic elements. Political analyst Nicolae Negru told AFP that Munteanu’s nomination shows exactly that switch of focus—from security to the economy.