This week, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Donald Tusk go to Moldova in a particularly delicate context, a few months before the elections to be held in this country of 2.3 million inhabitants, against the backdrop of the war in neighboring Ukraine. This official and unprecedented visit will be an opportunity for European leaders to carry strong messages on many crucial subjects: sovereignty of Moldova, EU membership process, or EU security.
If Moldova only rarely draws the attention of the media, it is however the scene of a case which crystallizes certain major issues of our time and which alone summarizes the contradictions and the challenges that arise for Europeans. On August 5, Evghenia Guțul, elected governor of the autonomous region of Gagaouzie, accused of ” complicity in illegal financing of electoral campaign “Was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Far from being summed up in a local judicial dispute, this trial is in the process of becoming a European symbol, as it concentrates questions which far exceed the Moldovan borders. Indeed, it is the relationship of Europe to its own promise which is discussed here: to protect minorities, to guarantee the separation of powers, and to protect in all circumstances the rule of law and the respect of the laws.
“The trial of Evghenia Guțul took place without respect for the fundamental requirement of impartiality and independence”
Gagaouzie, a territory with a singular identity, populated by a Turkish -speaking minority of Christian confession, was once greeted as a model: in 1994, its recognition by the Moldavian Constitution was even perceived by international observers as a rare, peaceful, almost exemplary compromise. Today, the incarceration of his elected representative appears to be the disturbing sign of an imbalance, where the accusation of Russian interference serves too opportunely as a mass argument to dismiss the respect of legal procedures for the benefit of justice which barely conceals its political intentions.
A presumption of flouted innocence
In fact, the breaches of the most basic rules of defense law would have enough to challenge any European citizen attached to democratic values. The trial of Evghenia Guțul took place without respect for the fundamental requirement of impartiality and independence, the judges who did not guarantee the balance between accusation and defense, in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Civil Pact on Civil and Political Rights.
The equality of arms and the presumption of innocence, principles also guaranteed by international texts of which Moldova is signatory, were not respected either: as soon as its trial, Evghenia Guțul was treated as culprit, the proofs, however fragile, being accepted without reservation, while its arguments and testimonies were systematically swept.
Deprived of full access to information, prevented from opposing certain witnesses, she found herself in front of a locked legal machine. This judgment, whose severity appears all the more disproportionate as it is based on extremely fragile elements, is obviously political. Note that this court decision does not only punish a political representative. She also deprives her voters of their democratic representation, in violation of international law too.
The question is whether an emerging democracy can tolerate that justice becomes a political instrument
Far from being exhaustive, this overview of the irregularities tainting the trial of Evghenia Guțul is however sufficient to draw up the observation of a highly worrying situation. A concern all the more justified in a state whose democratic vitality is still recent and fragile: Moldova indeed displays an index of democracy of 6.2/10, that is to say a level comparable to that of Albania or Serbia and which earns it to be classified among “imparfaite democracies”. It also appears in 73rd position of the 2024 classification of Transparency International, which assesses the states of the healthiest to the most corrupt.
While the French President, the German Chancellor and the Polish Prime Minister go to Chisinau, the question that arises in us is no longer only that of the trial of Evghenia Guțul, but to know if, at the heart of our continent, an emerging democracy can tolerate that justice becomes a political instrument – and if Europe can look away.
Moldova aspires to join the European Union. Europe, for its part, proclaims its attachment to human rights, democracy and respect for the law. However, these noble principles will only be pious wishes or hollow slogans if our collective determination to defend them and enforce them fluctuated according to geopolitical circumstances. More than ever, in these hectic times, it is at the source of its founding values that Europe must draw the strength to reaffirm its requirement for justice.
This requirement, we, Europeans, always carried it high through our history. Today, when some would like to see us give it up, on the contrary, we have the duty to protect it. Let us defend, in Moldova as elsewhere, a justice which is held at the level of the principles which it invokes. Because what is played out here is not only the fate of a woman, or even that of a region. It is the very credibility of the European project – and the future of our values.
