Analyses

The November 28 elections were expected to produce the long-sought clarity on the Moldovan political arena, but unfortunately for us, it wasn't meant to be this time either. Things start to look even more mixed up, the political crisis is continuing, and the country's future seems to be more uncertain than ever. To rephrase an old Moldovan proverb, a poor man can never get his politicians carry the load”. At this moment, this saying describes our realities best.

Regular meetings between political representatives of Chisinau and Tiraspol - Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Victor Osipov and Vladimir Yastrebchak. It is relevant that one of the meetings took place right in Tiraspol, on the occasion of launching the working groups. These constant meetings have contributed to solving the current problems and to strengthening the confidence-building measures between the two sides of the Nistru.

During this year, there were a series of events, both domestically and internationally, which resulted in the resumption of the permanent "5+2" dialogue as well as the fulfillment of certain concrete promises, such as for example, to resume passenger transportation on the Tiraspol-Chisinau-Odessa railroad. But there were some incidents caused by the transnistrian side, which disrupted the consultation process by creating artificial tensions. However, uncontrolled escalation of the conflict situations was successfully avoided. This is due, in large part, to the balanced and constructive attitude demonstrated by the Chisinau authorities this year.

In the morning on the 15th of October we went to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, where an old acquaintance was already expecting us - a former employee of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Moldova, Marco Shevchenko. Now, his place of work is the Political and Security Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

(This commentary was published in Moldovan newspaper TIMPUL on July 22, 2010)

With an average yearly income of only €1,100, Moldovans have seen their country steadily grow in the past decade only to run into the headwinds of the global economic crisis.

Draft Paper - Please do not quote. This paper was prepared within the Study Programme on European Security implemented by Institut fur Europaische Politik. The final paper will be published on www.iep-berlin.de

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Russia enjoys dabbling in the domestic politics of its neighboring countries, publicly supporting its favorite politicians and demonstrating its contempt for those whom it dislikes. But it rarely -- at least among its European neighbors -- gets the result it is seeking. The most recent example is Moldova.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Central University Library in Bucharest.

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.

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 years parliamentary elections. Moreover, if the PCRM remained in power, the CIS Summit was to sanction the reorientation to the East of Moldovas foreign policy. The PCRMs 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.

A ruling by Moldovas constitutional court on Thursday could clear the way for the former Soviet republic to form a western-leaning government after almost six months of political turmoil that began after contested elections in April failed to deliver a clear verdict.

Obviously every countrys 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.

This book is an analytical publication which highlights the analysis of a new format of the EU policy in the East (concerning Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Moldova) and views on possibilities of this policy application for further process of the European integration of Ukraine, that is in bilateral dimension și full integration of Ukraine to the EU structures, and in multilateral dimension și development and en-hancement of regional cooperation between all the Eastern partners and the EU; as well as recommendations for using the Eastern Partnership possibilities.

Commentary by Victor Chirila, Executive Director ad-interim of the Foreign Policy Association of Moldova.

The overload/reset” button was at least somewhat pressed during the Obama-Tandem summit earlier this month, between the American president and the twin rulers of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.

Foreign ministers from the 27 EU member states faced a complex agenda as they met in Luxembourg, staking out cautious positions in response to developments in Iran and Israel. The ministers extended an invitation to Moldova to hold talks on a new cooperation agreement as soon as the EU is satisfied Chisinau is committed to reforms.