Moldova Backs Wage Negotiations With New National Plan as Living Costs Strain Households

The September 2026 Public Opinion Barometer, conducted by Moldova’s Institute for Public Policy, found that living costs remain at the forefront of public concern.

For many households in Moldova, the pressure of everyday expenses has made wages and financial security urgent concerns. A nationwide poll by the International Republican Institute last year found that 63 per cent of Moldovans named the cost of living, low incomes or other financial issues among the country's most important problems.

The September 2026 Public Opinion Barometer, conducted by Moldova's Institute for Public Policy, found that living costs remain at the forefront of public concern. Against that backdrop, the Government has adopted a national Action Plan for 2026–2030 to promote collective bargaining, strengthening the process through which workers and employers negotiate pay and working conditions.

Giving workers and employers more room to negotiate

Collective bargaining creates a way for workers and employers to discuss wages and other employment terms through organised dialogue. For workers, it offers a means of bringing shared concerns into negotiations; for enterprises, it provides a more predictable framework for resolving workplace challenges and managing change.

Moldova's new plan sets out measures to improve the laws and regulations governing collective bargaining, strengthen institutions responsible for social dialogue and build the capacity of workers' and employers' organisations.

It also seeks to improve knowledge and understanding of collective bargaining, helping those involved make better use of the process.

The plan does not itself announce a wage increase. Its focus is on strengthening the arrangements through which pay and working conditions can be negotiated, an issue with particular relevance to households worried about making their incomes stretch.

A trade union proposal becomes national policy

The initiative began in 2025 with the National Trade Union Confederation of Moldova, which developed a proposal with technical support from the International Labour Organization through a project funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, known as SECO.

The Confederation brought its proposal into national discussions, and a draft plan took shape through dialogue involving the Government and representatives of workers' and employers' organisations.

Throughout that process, the ILO reviewed successive drafts and provided technical comments to help bring the proposals closer to international labour standards and good practices.

That route from a trade union initiative to an adopted government plan gives social dialogue a practical role in policymaking: the organisations expected to help make collective bargaining work also participated in shaping the measures intended to strengthen it.

The plan's adoption is also a concrete result under Moldova's Decent Work Country Programme for 2025–2027, agreed by the Government, workers' and employers' organisations and the ILO. Strengthening social dialogue at every level is the programme's first priority.

Annual reviews will track progress and EU alignment

The Action Plan supports Moldova's existing international labour commitments. The country ratified the ILO Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949, known as Convention No. 98, in 1996. Article 4 calls for measures that encourage and promote voluntary negotiation between employers or their organisations and workers' organisations.

The Government has also linked the plan to Moldova's efforts to align its labour legislation with the European Union's body of laws and obligations, including its National Accession Programme for 2025–2029.

Part of that work concerns EU Directive 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages. The Directive requires EU Member States with collective bargaining coverage below 80 per cent to establish an action plan containing a clear timeline and concrete measures to progressively expand coverage. Moldova's initiative forms part of its efforts to align with those requirements.

Implementation will be monitored annually. Responsible public authorities and institutions will submit progress reports to the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, which will bring the findings together for consideration by the National Commission for Consultations and Collective Bargaining.

The plan may be revised periodically after consultation with workers' and employers' representatives. Those reviews will provide opportunities to examine how implementation is progressing and what adjustments are needed as the country works to strengthen negotiations over pay and working life.