EU tries to reassert role in future of Moldova

[Crvena zvezda]

EU tries to reassert role in future of MoldovaEUobserver.com
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU is pressing Russia to revive multilateral talks on the future of Moldova, amid fears that a bilateral Chisinau-Moscow deal could see the once pro-EU state fall back into the Russian sphere of influence in a blow to Europe's neighbourhood policy goals.

"Participants...called on both parties to resume talks, with their own presence as mediators and observers," Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said after a key meeting in Madrid on Thursday (23 May). "I hope that the 5+2 format, which brings together the sides with mediators and observers, can resume its work very soon."




The Madrid gathering brought together the EU, US, Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE in a so-called 3+2 format. The 3+2 format and the 5+2 format, which includes also Moldova and its rebel province of Transdniestria, are aimed at ending the Transdniestria conflict after 15 years of tense ceasefire.

Russia still keeps 1,300 "peacekeeping" troops in the breakaway region and pulls strings in the rebel government via people like ex-KGB officer Vladimir Antufeyev, who now heads Trasndniestria's security services. Members of the Russian elite, such as ex-PM Viktor Chernomyrdin, are also reported to have strong business ties in the region.

Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin in 2003 broke ties with Russia and said he would steer Moldova toward EU integration, triggering projects such as an EU border control mission on Trasndniestria. But he has failed to deliver on pro-EU democratic and economic reforms and is increasingly being seen as a dark horse in Brussels.

The 5+2 club has lain dormant for most of the past year, with Mr Voronin since August negotiating directly with Russian officials instead. The bilateral talks have yielded a draft new re-unification deal that would see Trasndniestrians take powerful posts in Chisinau and Russian troops stay in the country indefinitely.

"This military presence can destabilise Moldova at any time. If in future, the Moldovan parliament votes on a policy that is not liked by Russia, it would be very easy for Russia to organise a provocation [such as a small scale gun battle against its forces] and then the Russian might stands ready to react," a senior diplomat from the 5+2 group warned.

Other contacts from the group told EUobserver that Russian leader Vladimir Putin last week read and approved the bilateral Transdniestria deal. Presidents Putin and Voronin are due to meet in St Petersburg on 10 June on the margins of a CIS summit, with concerns the agreement could be on this day signed and presented to the EU as a fait accompli.

In a 22 May interview for Russian agency Ria Novosti, president Voronin even took a swipe at EU involvement in the 5+2, despite the fact it joined the group in 2005 at his own request. "As soon as we approach a principal agreement on the issue, something immediately happens - a provocation staged locally or in the west, or an information leakage, or something else," he said.

Analysts, such as Nicu Popescu of the European Council on Foreign Relations, pin the situation partly on president Mr Voronin's ambition to hold on to power and partly on a failure of the EU's neighbourhood policy (ENP). The ENP asks countries to take on EU values and standards but gives no strong incentive, such as future EU entry, in return.

The unfolding political crisis in Ukraine has also been linked by Ukraine diplomats to the weakness of the EU offer for the post-revolutionary state. If Moldova pins its future to Russia instead of the EU and the pro-Russia faction wins decisively in Kiev, it could spell a sea change in the EU's role as a transformational force in post-Soviet states.

"Moldova would be the first country the Kremlin won back from the west since the 1970s," a correspondent for The Economist magazine touring Trasndniestria wrote in his blog on 18 May

[Heretik]

Better EU than Russia.