|
|
 |
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact Still Divides Europe. Radio Free Europe. 17.10.2009. 17.10.2009
Called "Europe 70 years after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact," and sponsored by the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the conference was organized to discuss the fates of those countries -- together with Poland, Romania and Finland -- that were stripped of their national statehood and relegated to the status of pawns in the designs of Europe's two great powers in 1939.
|
| |
 Analysis by Victor Chirila, Foreign Policy Association acting executive director: CIS Summit behind, AEI remains united. Info-Prim Neo. 12.10.2009. 12.10.2009
The Summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) took place in Chisinau on October 9. This event, in the view of the former government, was to crown the victory of the Communists Party (PCRM) in this year’s parliamentary elections. Moreover, if the PCRM remained in power, the CIS Summit was to sanction the reorientation to the East of Moldova’s foreign policy. The PCRM’s defeat in the early legislative elections of July 29 and the coming to power of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) thwarted the plans of the former head of state Vladimir Voronin and his party.
|
| |
Nicu Popescu: Moldova defies post-Soviet traditions. EUOBSERVER. 10.08.2009. 10.08.2009
Obviously every country’s transition from socialism to democracy had its unique set of models and circumstances (and many countries do not even pretent to be in “transition”). All transitions are sui generis. At this stage Moldova is strengthening its break from the typically authoritarian post-Soviet governance models, and might be evolving towards the messier style of Central European politics in the 90s. It has no obvious Dzurinda who would accelerate and implement successfully a European reform agenda, and most importantly it does not have an EU accession perspective. Politics will almost inevitably be incredibly messy.
|
| |
Louis O'Neill: Moldova Crisis Is An Opportunity For The EU, Radio Free Europe 10.06.2009
The partnership was launched on May 7 in Prague to lackluster reviews as several key European leaders -- most notably Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Silvio Berlusconi -- failed to show up. Many who did come crossed their fingers that a notorious invitee, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, would stay far away. As it turns out, the Belarusian leader didn’t make it and neither did then- (and still-) acting Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin.
|
| |
Mired in Moldova: "Can Europe's last Communist government hang on?", Louis O'Neill. Foreign Policy Website 20.05.2009
On May 20, the Moldovan opposition passed its first real test of unity when it effectively boycotted the session of the new Parliament -- elected in the controversial polls of April 5 -- that was convened to choose the country's next president. Rapid-fire, there will be another, possibly decisive vote for president, and Vladimir Voronin, the Communist Party head, Parliament speaker, and acting president, called it for May 28.
|
| |
Creating good neighbours in Russia's backyard. By Andrew Wilson and Nicu Popescu. The Moscow Time. 17.05.2009
European Union policy toward its neighbours to the east is in trouble, despite the launch of its new Eastern Partnership. European public opinion is increasingly introspective and sporadically protectionist. So what is to be done about the "grey zone" to Europe's east -- the six countries that now lie between the EU and Russia? Inaction is unacceptable. The region has been badly hit by the economic crisis, made all the worse by internal political turmoil and serious security dangers.
|
| |
The World's Most Unhappy People. Louis O’Neill. Wall Street Journal. 21.04.2009
The recent government crackdown in Moldova on violent protests against allegations of electoral fraud during the April 5 parliamentary vote brings to mind Eric Weiner's "The Geography of Bliss." The author's year-long search for the world's happiest place led him to the conclusion that Moldovans must be the most unhappy people. Without an "abiding faith or culture on which to rely," Mr. Weiner wrote, Moldovans harbor a superstitious world-view that is "free-floating, anchored to nothing but the cloud of pessimism that hovers over this sad land."
|
| |
 Wake-Up Call for the Kremlin. Louis O’Neill. Moscow Times. 10.04.2009
For the first time in recent memory, the heavy hitters of international election monitoring -- the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the Council of Europe and the European Parliament -- were in agreement with Russia-led observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States: Moldovan parliamentary elections on Sunday were run more or less in accordance with accepted norms. Nonetheless, provocateur-instigated violence and vandalism broke out in Chisinau following massive, peaceful and spontaneous opposition protests.
|
| |
 Putting Moldova on the map. Nicu Popescu. The Guardian, 10.04.2009. 10.04.2009
The European Union is the only political actor with the credibility to find a solution to the current crisisWhen a crowd of demonstrators stormed Moldova's presidential palace and parliament building this week, many in the west struggled to understand what was happening there. Was it a new Ukraine-style "colour revolution", or a Latvia-style riot sparked by the economic crisis? The truth is it's neither.
|
| |
 An EU response to Moldova’s Twitter Revolution. Nicu Popescu. EUOBSERVER, 07.04.2009 07.04.2009 - 15.04.2009
Moldova is the latest country in Europe to collapse into crisis after a contested election. Some 15.000 people, communicating through web-sites like ‘Twitter’, took to the street to protest against unfair elections taking control of the Parliament and Presidential Palace. The protests follow on from Georgia’s Rose revolution in 2004, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2005, and the killing of ten protestors against election fraud in Armenia in March 2008.
|
| |
Moldovan President Suspends Deal With Moscow and Tiraspol. Vladimir Socor. Eurasia Daily Monitor, 31.03.2009 31.03.2009
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has pulled back at the last moment from the brink of a separate deal to put Russia in the driving seat of negotiations on Transnistria. The March 18 joint declaration by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Voronin, and Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov triggered that process. A meeting of Voronin and Smirnov in Tiraspol on March 25 was scheduled as next in the sequence, potentially leading to the presentation of a fait accompli by Moscow to the Western negotiators in the 5+2 format.
|
| |
Moscow, Tiraspol Sidelining the West From Negotiations on Transnistria Conflict. Vladimir Socor. Eurasia Daily Monitor, 31.03.2009 31.03.2009
The joint declaration by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, and Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov, signed in Moscow on March 18 (EDM, March 20, 25, 26), is serving Smirnov well as a negotiation-breaker. Citing points in that declaration, Smirnov is now calling openly for marginalizing or bypassing Western participants in the negotiating process, which Moscow and Tiraspol -or the latter fronting for the former- had already brought to a deadlock.
|
| |
Moldova's President Surrendered Long-Held Positions in Joint Declarations with Medvedev. Vladimir Socor. Eurasia Daily Monitor, March 26, 2009 26.03.2009
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin's signature on the March 18 Moscow declaration, with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Transnistria's leader Igor Smirnov (Interfax, Russian MFA website, March 18, 19; see EDM, March 20, 25), amounts to a surrender in the final days of Voronin's presidency. This political document has solidified Russia's military presence and increased Russia's scope for influencing Moldova's policy choices through manipulation of the Transnistria conflict. These are the short-term effects and may extend beyond the short term unless a post-Voronin government disavows this move.
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
 Crisis in Moldova. A republic, if you can steal it. The Economist. 30.01.2016 01.02.2016
IN 1918 the then three-month-old Moldovan republic gave up the struggle for survival and united with neighbouring Romania. It is a sign of how dire things are today, says Iulian Fota, a Romanian analyst, that people are talking about doing so again. Ever since 2014, when the embezzlement of about
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
