The visit by Romanian President Traian Basescu opens a new chapter in the Romanian policy towards Moldova. Previously Romania’s interest in Moldova was largely declaratory and not supported by real political and financial engagement. Since the formation of a new pro-European government in Chisinau, which is favourably disposed towards Romania, Bucharest has made Moldova the priority of its foreign policy and adopted a more tangible agenda with regard to it. Romania will pursue a two-track policy with regard to Moldova. On the one hand, it is intensifying bilateral economic and human ties with Moldova for the first time allocating significant funds for this goal. On the other, Bucharest is becoming Moldova’s main advocate inside the EU.
However, the strategy of Moldova’s European integration ‘via Romania’ raises strong resistance from the Communist opposition and some doubts among a part of the governing coalition, which fear that Moldova could be gradually swallowed up by Romania.
Bucharest’s policy towards Moldova: goals and means
Basescu’s visit had both practical and symbolic dimensions. As to the former, Basescu promised to allocate 100 million euros from the Romanian budget for financing joint infrastructural and educational projects. The agreed projects include construction of connections between Romanian and Moldovan electrical (Falciu–Gotesti) and gas (Dochia–Ungheni–Iasi) networks, reconstruction of bridges across the river Prut and the building of new border checkpoints. Basescu promised to increase the number of grants for Moldovan students in Romania from three to five thousand annually, to cancel the obligation for visa applicants to prove that they have sufficient funds and to accelerate the procedure of granting Romanian citizenship (hundreds of thousands of applications from Moldovan citizens have been received, of which nearly twenty thousand were considered in 2009). Although it is Bucharest which will pay most of the costs of bilateral co-operation, the directions of such co-operation have been set in consultations between the two parties and meet the expectations of the governing Moldovan Alliance for European Integration.
In the symbolic field, Basescu declared Romania’s support for Moldova’s accession to the European Union. He reiterated however his refusal to sign border and “basic’ treaties with Moldova. Their signature by Bucharest is seen by a part of the Moldovan political elite (Communists and the Democratic Party) as a final confirmation that Romania recognizes Moldova’s sovereign statehood and its borders.. In turn, Basescu argues that Romania has already recognised both the existing border and the independence of Moldova, and that the signature of the proposed treaties would retroactively legitimize the Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact and its consequences.
Romanian policy of engagement in Moldova is accompanied by its active advocacy of Moldova within the EU. For example, Bucharest is pushing through the idea of ‘transferring’ Moldova from the group of countries covered by the European Union’s Neighbourhood Policy to the Western Balkan group. Since the latter is covered by the Enlargement Policy, this would open a prospect for EU membership to Moldova. Romania has also initiated the creation of an informal ‘Group of Friends’, intended as an unofficial pro Moldovan lobby inside the EU. It includes, apart from Romania, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France and Poland. Such actions, taken together, indicate that Romania is using its EU membership with growing skill and consistency to realise its national interest in Moldova, defined as a maximum rapprochement of the two countries.
Reactions from Moldova
The Alliance for European Integration, which is currently the ruling coalition in Chisinau, has been hoping that Romania will become its key partner in its policy of rapprochement and later integration with the European Union. Romanian proposals announced at the time of Basescu’s visit fully meet those expectations.
However, this visit and the way in which the Romanian proposals were presented may become a source of troubles for the government in Chisinau. Two different visions of co-operation with Romania uneasily coexist inside the Alliance. The first one, represented by the Liberal Party led by the acting president Mihai Ghimpu, is based on the formula of ‘two Romanian states in the European Union’, thus treating co-operation with Romania as a process of restoring the unity of the Romanian nation (without openly undermining the separate statehood of Moldova). The second one, represented by Marian Lupu, who is the Alliance’s candidate for the presidency and the leader of the Democratic Party, provides for a pragmatic co-operation with Romania in the process of Moldova’s European integration, emphasising the distinctness of Moldovans as a nation and the multiethnic nature of the Moldovan state. The Liberal-Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Vlad Filat has adopted an approach intermediate between the two different visions.
The visit revealed those divides. The Democratic Party passed an official resolution in which it insisted that Romania should sign the border and the base treaties. This demand is not supported by the other members of the Alliance, which share the Romanian president’s view on this issue.
Basescu’s visit, as well as his policy towards Moldova, has also deepened political divisions within the society as a whole.. It has been enthusiastically welcomed by the pro-Romanian part of society, which more or less corresponds to the electorate of liberal parties (approximately 40%). Meanwhile, the Communist electorate (also approximately 40%) reacts negatively to any attempts of rapprochement with Romania, especially those which can be interpreted as a step towards the absorption of Moldova by Romania.
2010-02-03 | Tomasz Dąborowski and Witold Rodkiewicz
http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/eastweek/2010-02-03/romanian-project-european-integration-moldova
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