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Saxony and Berlin

After the 2009 elections and the new 2010 elections, the Liberal Party of Moldova joined the democratic governmental coalition “Alliance for the European Integration” for the second time. A good reason for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom to keep on enhancing its support. Special attention should be focused on the Young Liberals who will take leadership of both their party and the country in the short term. In order to equip them appropriately for their tasks, the Foundation arranged for a series of seminars and workshops about political topics, skills, and abilities.

Within this framework, seven activists of the youth organization had the chance of taking part in a 1-week trip to visit Saxony and Berlin. The program goal was focused on providing participants with onsite information about internal democracy, internal rules, electoral ordinances, and programmatic work of both the Young Liberals and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Their first stopover was Dresden, the capital city of the federal state of Saxony. There
Meeting Julia Hesse the Moldovans visited the Liberal House where the headquarters of the FDP, the Liberal Youth Action (Jungliberalen Aktion, JuliA), the state university group, the State Association of Liberal Municipal Politicians, and of the Wilhelm Külz Foundation are located. JuliA representatives presented the programmatic work, the governmental organization structure and –an issue vested with extreme interest for the visitors- the internal electoral processes within the working groups and jointly with the mother party. The relative independence of the Young Liberals from the liberal party proved to be useful to approach the target groups through different methods and tools. The Young Liberals in Moldova are part of the party, a fact that sometimes leads to the point that the youth organization has to fight for its independence. “In this regard, we still have to work hardly on our persuading effort”, stated Mihai Pascovschi, secretary general of the Young Liberals of Moldova.

At dinner time, visitors met Roland Werner, State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy, Labor and Transportation in Saxony. Werner himself was an active young liberal for many years. The interview topics focused around the FDP in Saxony as a successful coalition partner in the federal state, and as a party that defends a modern, pragmatic, and investment-fostering economic policy.

Culture was neither absent. Thus young Moldovans got to know the astounding metropolitan scenery in Dresden, the reconstructed Church of Our Lady, and other historical buildings. They were extremely impressed that a great deal was achieved through the active cooperation of the citizens of Dresden and many other people's generosity.

Reconstruction work and liberal engagement can also be found in other parts of the country. Mayors and representatives of the Saxony Association of Liberal Municipal Politicians proved that point during their exposition about projects in smaller municipalities.

In Berlin, the last stopover of their trip, the visitors met liberal politicians nation-wide. Their conviction was reassured: the youth work is a meaningful complement to the mother party’s work, but should be performed as independent and autonomous as possible, based on the youth’s ideas and vigor, when the goal lies on achieving joint success.


With Gabriele Renatus After presenting the party’s work, Gabriele Renatus, national FDP manager, led the group through a tour around the national headquarters and showed the recently arranged cabinet of honorary chairman, Walter Scheel, who left the FDP a part of his office’s library and furniture.

The fact that also in Berlin the political history provides a significant contribution to a mutual understanding, was evidenced during a sightseeing tour to the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag building, and the remains of the Berlin Wall. Uwe Fischer, a skilled tour conductor, made use of the Moldovan visitors’ linguistic knowledge and explained German history in Russian. This considerably enabled comprehension, in spite that in the Romanian-speaking Republic of Moldova, the Russian language is precisely considered a legacy of the Soviet Union and is not willingly spoken due to ideological prejudices. However, it became clear that a language per se has no ideological burdens and that it can be a reasonable tool for (international) understanding.

The group visited the Truman House at Potsdam-Babelsberg, the Foundation headquarters. There they acquired plenty of information about the work performed by the Foundation worldwide, as well as about the structures and duties of the liberal institution. Since this site has also its own history, the group requested to insert a visit to the Cecilienhof Palace, where the peaceful post-war order was set forth in 1945 by means of the Potsdam Declaration.

Municipal elections in Moldova were held in 2011. Against this background, the visit to the FDP municipal bastion in Rangsdorf in southern Berlin ended up being of significant interest. The local mayor, Klaus Rocher, who obtained 70% of the votes, recently started his second eight-year mandate. He is supported by an FDP bench in the municipal council, the strongest bench with five members. Ion Chitoroga, a young municipal politician, took advantage of the opportunity and offered Rangsdorf a partnership relation with his hometown in Moldova. “One can learn so much from you, particularly the way to promote citizen involvement in municipal work”, he stated.

The conversation held with Dr. Sieg, an expert on Moldovan issues in the German Federal Parliament, expressed once again the enormous interest Germany has regarding a democratic development of the Republic of Moldova, a steady governmental coalition, and close relations. The fact that Dr. Sieg highlighted the Liberal Party as a stabilizing factor within the tripartite coalition naturally rejoiced the Young Liberals of Moldova. But he also stated that there is still much to do for the country to further successfully advance towards Europe.

Undoubtedly, this visit program entailed a key experience for our Moldovan friends. They became acquainted with a stable democratic system, in which Liberals make successful contributions at various levels. This fostered incentives, which we, as Naumann Foundation, want to accompany with much more intensive work in the country. Consequently, a seminar will be held this autumn in Chisinau, in which the seven group members will provide a detailed account of their experiences, and also draw useful conclusions for the future work of the youth organization.

Furthermore, the liberal metropolitan mayor, Dorin Chirtoaca, will possibly be invited to visit Berlin in late October to hold a meeting with liberal leaders, politicians and municipal players.



by Peter-Andreas Bochmann



The delegation at the Liberal House in Dresden