Moldova ceases co-financing of CIS's Mir TV company - govt decision

CHISINAU. April 4 (Interfax) - Moldova will no longer co-finance the Mir television channel run by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Moldovan government press secretary Daniel Voda said.

The government made this decision on Tuesday, while endorsing a budget of Moldova's contributions to international organizations in 2023, Voda said.

"The Cabinet of Ministers endorsed financial contributions to various international organizations today. For the first time, our country won't finance the Mir television company," Voda said, adding that Chisinau has qualified some reports that the company has circulated over the past year as disinformation.

"Moldova won't allocate funds from the state budget for this propaganda tool," Voda said.

Debates on ceasing Moldova's participation in the Mir television and radio company's operations have persisted since the start of the combat actions in Ukraine, when the Moldovan Audiovisual Council prohibited broadcasts of a number of Russian television channels, including Mir. The Moldovan government has stopped contributing its fee of about $200,000 to co-finance the CIS channel since April 2022. Moldova's budget for 2023 did not provide for funds to co-finance Mir, and the channel's broadcasts are still prohibited in the country. Before the financing was ceased, the Moldovan team at Mir numbered 16 employees, and this figure has now been reduced to 11.

On March 20, the Moldovan parliamentary Foreign Policy and European Integration Commission approved the government's proposal that the agreement on international legal guarantees of the Mir TV and radio company's unhindered and independent operations be severed.

The Mir TV and radio company's functioning is regulated by the agreement on international legal guarantees of its unhindered and independent operations signed between the CIS countries in Ashgabat in 1993.