Europe and Russia Compete in Moldova
Video Transcript:
Moldova's new prime minister, Iurie Leanca, who was sworn in late last month, said over the weekend that Moldova remains on a pro-European course. Leanca's appointment resolved a political crisis after the previous government under Vlad Filat collapsed earlier in the year. While Leanca's new government is nominally committed to integrating with the West, Moldova will face significant opposition from Russia, just as Moscow is building ties with key European countries like Romania.
Moldova is a tiny country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. The country lies between the Carpathian Mountains and the Black Sea. This location has made Moldova a strategic area that has been dominated and contested by numerous powers throughout history, most recently between Romania and Russia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Moldova emerged as an independent country. However, the Europeans and the Russians continue to compete over influence in Moldova.
Moldova's political situation reveals this competition, as the country has been in a state of political deadlock between rival camps for much of the past four years. While the country was ruled by the Russia-oriented Communist Party for most of the previous decade, parliamentary elections in 2009 saw the emergence of the Western-oriented Alliance for European Integration coalition. The competition between the Communists and the AEI prevented the nomination of a president -- which must be approved by 61 percent of the Parliament -- for nearly three years. Furthermore, the AEI coalition, split between three parties and rife with its own divisions, collapsed over a corruption scandal earlier in 2013.
The appointment of Leanca, who previously served as the country's foreign minister, as a compromise candidate has apparently set the Moldovan government back on course to achieve its goals of closer integration with the European Union. A key event in this regard will be the upcoming Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in November, where Moldova hopes to initial a free trade and association agreement with the EU.
However, significant obstacles to closer cooperation between Moldova and the EU remain. First, internal political divisions within the Moldovan government continue, and the long-term stability of the Alliance for European Integration remains in question. Second, there is the Russia factor. Besides its support of the opposition Communist Party, Russia has significant leverage in Moldova via its military presence in the breakaway republic of Transdniestria. This tiny sliver of territory is a key impediment to any serious integration of Moldova into Europe given the compromise of territorial integrity, and Moscow has shown no willingness to budge on this issue.
Russia has also made significant gains in recent years establishing closer ties to Central and Eastern European countries. In the context of the European financial crisis, Russia has been able to establish business ties and pick up key economic assets in several countries in the region that are being hurt by the crisis and are in need of financial reprieve. One of these countries has been Romania, which has traditionally been the strongest supporter of Moldova's Western integration. Given that Moldova already faced difficulties in increasing cooperation with the West due to its own domestic issues, the changing dynamics of Europe during the economic crisis will only make it harder for Moldova to get closer to the EU.
