By Alexander Tanas
CHISINAU (Reuters) -Moldova's parliament voted early on Friday to impose a national state of emergency for 60 days starting on Dec. 16 due to an expected cut-off of Russian gas supplies from Jan. 1.
Fifty-six members in the 101-seat chamber backed the measure in the vote just after midnight following Prime Minister Dorin Recean's call for approval to ensure Moldova's separatist Transdniestria region secured the gas it needed.
It was a vote, he said, to end "gas blackmail" from Moscow.
Declaring a state of emergency allows the government to respond rapidly and curb energy exports.
Moldova receives Russian natural gas via Ukraine, which has said it will not extend its transit contract with Russian gas giant Gazprom (MCX:GAZP). The contract expires on Dec. 31.
Recean said Russian President Vladimir Putin "wants to leave the population of Transdniestria without gas and electricity and hold them hostage. Moscow is doing this to destabilise the situation in Moldova."
It was up to parliament, Recean said, to approve the state of emergency so that "this winter must be the last in the country's history when we can be subject to energy blackmail".
Failing to provide gas to Transdniestria, the government said in a statement, "will lead to a humanitarian crisis... and will also create risks for the stability of the electricity sector of Moldova".
Moldova receives about 2 billion cubic metres of gas per year from Russia. Since 2022, Transdniestria and the central government have agreed that all Russian gas received by Moldova flows to Transdniestria.
Transdniestria is home to a power plant fuelled by Russian gas that is a vital plank of the breakaway region's economy and also provides most of the power for government-controlled areas of Moldova.
Transdniestria, which has no international recognition, declared its own economic state of emergency on Tuesday.
Recean said the transit issue through Ukraine was an "artificial problem" as Russian gas could move along other routes.
Moldova has said an alternative route to Transdniestria could be to ship Russian gas via the TurkStream pipeline to Turkey and then through Bulgaria and Romania.
The supplies, however, could be under question as Gazprom in talks linked continued deliveries via alternative routes to its demands that Moldova pay a debt on past supplies, which according to Russian calculations stands at $709 million.