Moldova

Moldova ranked 31st of 180 countries in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 74.77, rising four places and 1.41 points from 35th and 73.36 in 2025.

Freedom of the press and the right to information are guaranteed by law and best practices are encouraged. While some independent media cover subjects embarrassing to the authorities, many limit themselves to following the national administration’s agenda, and most outlets owned by politicians follow their parties’ agendas. Journalists can be targets of insults and intimidation by politicians, whose supporters sometimes resort to cyber-harassment against reporters deemed hostile. Access to the separatist Transnistrian region requires special accreditation.

The parliamentary election of 28 September 2025 was fought in an information environment saturated with foreign manipulation, and returned the governing Party of Action and Solidarity with a clear majority.

Investigations exposed coordinated foreign-influence operations surrounding the election. An undercover BBC investigation documented a Russian-funded network that recruited participants through Telegram, trained them to publish pro-Kremlin material and promised monthly payments through a Russian bank; the operation was linked to Ilan Shor and the Evrazia organisation. Separately, TikTok reported removing more than 100,000 fake accounts in the two months preceding the vote. False narratives included fabricated allegations of electoral fraud and personal attacks on President Maia Sandu.

On 16 September 2025 police searched premises associated with Primul în Moldova and Canal 5 in an investigation into alleged tax evasion, money laundering and covert financing of pro-Russian propaganda.

The Media Freedom Rapid Response platform recorded 81 press freedom violations in Moldova as of September 2025. Most were insults or harassment of journalists by politicians, in person or online, together with intimidation of journalists at protests. No serious cases of physical violence against media workers were recorded, and the International Press Institute assessed that the overall legal framework ensures appropriate conditions for independent journalism, including access to public information, the right to report freely from protests and open access to politicians and officials. A later dataset from the Independent Press Association counted 97 attacks during the whole of 2025, though the methodologies may differ.

Legislation moved in several directions during the year. In July 2025 Parliament adopted a package on video-sharing platforms aligned with European Union standards, requiring platforms with a legal presence in Moldova to implement community rules, parental controls, age verification and data-protection safeguards, and to restrict content linked to hate speech, disinformation, terrorism or child exploitation. The Audiovisual Council’s powers were expanded, though the law reaches only platforms established in Moldova.

Also in July 2025, the criminal code and the code of administrative offences were amended to specify types of attack against the press and increase penalties for obstructing journalistic work. Those strengthened protections entered into force on 14 February 2026. A separate amendment to the law on state advertising defined its content and set procedures for allocating public funds, with all contracts now requiring reporting.

Articles 4 and 5 of Law No. 64/2010 on Freedom of Expression guarantee media freedom of expression and prohibit censorship, and the Audiovisual Media Services Code guarantees editorial autonomy for broadcasters.

Provisions against disinformation were introduced into the Audiovisual Media Services Code in 2022. The first penalties followed only in April 2024, when two Gagauzian public stations were fined.

The apparatus built to counter foreign manipulation is itself a press freedom question. During the state of emergency imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Commission for Exceptional Situations, chaired by the Prime Minister and composed mainly of ministerial representatives, held power to authorise or interrupt broadcasting without consulting legislative or judicial authorities. Media freedom NGOs described the banning of channels and censoring of websites as risking a dangerous precedent against press freedom, and called for a preventative legal framework aligned with democratic principles. After the state of emergency was lifted in December 2023, the authorities amended the provisions that had allowed several channels to be suspended without sufficient transparency.

State Media Monitor maps three entries in Moldova, each in a different category.

Teleradio-Moldova, the national public service media provider, is classified Independent State-Funded (ISF), revised from Independent State-Funded and State-Managed in 2025. It operates Moldova 1 and Moldova 2 on television and four radio services, including Radio Moldova Comrat, launched in July 2025.

Moldpres, the state news agency and publisher of the official gazette Monitorul Oficial, is classified Captured Public or State Managed/Owned Media (CaPu), revised from State-Controlled in this cycle.

GRT, the regional public broadcaster of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, is classified State-Controlled Media (SC).

The 2025 reform of public broadcasting governance is the central development. Amendments in force from 21 August 2025 removed Parliament from the direct appointment of TRM’s nine-member Supervisory and Development Council. Five members are selected by the Press Council and four by the Audiovisual Council through public competitions; the Audiovisual Council formally appoints the members by a two-thirds vote at a public meeting. The Council in turn appoints the Director-General through public competition.

The reform reduces direct parliamentary control but does not eliminate political-influence risks. Four of the Audiovisual Council’s seven members are nominated by political institutions, two through Parliament, one by the President and one by the Government, and all seven are formally appointed by Parliament. The Venice Commission welcomed the removal of direct parliamentary appointments while warning that the Council’s independence still depends partly on the Audiovisual Council’s own independence, and questioned whether the Press Council’s role in selecting five TRM council members carries sufficient guarantees of transparency, pluralism and accountability.

Implementation remained transitional. By the end of March 2026 only one member had been appointed under the new procedure. A second vacancy remained open, and a new competition was launched after no other candidate in the earlier round reached the required threshold.

A bill amending the Audiovisual Media Services Code passed first reading on 25 August 2026 and had not been enacted as of 13 September. It would adapt elements of the TRM reform to GRT by replacing the current nine-member Observers Council with a five-member regional Supervisory Council selected by the Audiovisual Council.

Moldpres sits outside that structure. The State Chancellery is its founder, its Council of five to seven members is composed by order of the Secretary General of the Government under Government Decision No. 1208/2018, and the Director is appointed by the Secretary General on the Council’s decision following public competition.

Funding differs sharply across the three. TRM’s 2026 state allocation is approximately MDL 221 million, and audited figures show state transfers at roughly 88.7 per cent of recorded revenue in 2023 and 88.4 per cent in 2024. GRT receives subsidies from the budget of the Gagauz autonomy, with no 2026 allocation established. Moldpres operates on a self-management basis, with approximately 99 per cent of its 2020 income derived from Monitorul Oficial sales and subscriptions. Because that revenue is generated through sales rather than a demonstrated budget subsidy, the State Media Matrix’s predominant direct-state-funding condition is not established.

OSCE/ODIHR monitoring of Moldova 1 during the September 2025 election found the channel noticeably more critical of the Patriotic Bloc, its talk shows indirectly favouring PAS through a pro-European narrative, and little in-house analytical or investigative programming.

GRT has been sanctioned repeatedly by the Audiovisual Council, with fines of MDL 60,000 in April 2024 for disinformation, hate speech and information-security failures and MDL 85,000 in March 2025 for promoting political actors and bad-faith reporting, two further MDL 30,000 fines and a one-day advertising suspension during the 2025 campaign, and removal from the register of signatories to the Journalistic Code of Ethics in October 2025.

A Court of Accounts audit published in November 2025 found TRM expenditure approximately MDL 21.5 million above approved item-level limits, weaknesses in budgeting, procurement and asset management, and conflict-of-interest risks because two members of the Supervisory and Development Council were simultaneously employed and paid by TRM. TRM disputed some interpretations and said it was implementing the recommendations.

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