Moldova escapes government and currency crises

When a long crisis triggered a sudden run on its currency last month, Moldova’s parliament finally chose a new liberal Prime Minister. If the fragile minority government survives, last year’s EU agreement will help re-kindle economic growth slowed last year by Russian trade embargoes.

Guest post by Dr. Daniel Friedheim

Even though the parliamentary election last Nov. 30 re-elected the liberal coalition that steered Moldova from dependency on Russia to integration with Europe, the three coalition parties haggled for ten acrimonious weeks over whether to re-nominate Prime Minister Iurie Leanca.

Why Moldova Urgently Matters

"NATO's Article 5 offers little protection against Vladimir Putin's Russia," Iulian Fota, Romania's presidential national security adviser, told me on a recent visit to Bucharest. "Article 5 protects Romania and other Eastern European countries against a military invasion. But it does not protect them against subversion," that is, intelligence activities, the running of criminal networks, the buying-up of banks and other strategic assets, and indirect control of media organs to undermine public opinion. Moreover, Article 5 does not protect Eastern Europe against reliance on Russian energy. As Romanian President Traian Basescu told me, Romania is a somewhat energy-rich island surrounded by a Gazprom empire. The president ran his finger over a map showing how Romania's neighbors such as Bulgaria and Hungary were almost completely dependent on Russian natural gas, while Romania -- because of its own hydrocarbon reserves -- still has a significant measure of independence. In the 21st century, the president explained, Gazprom is more dangerous than the Russian army. The national security adviser then added: "Putin is not an apparatchik; he is a former intelligence officer," implying that Putin will act subtly. Putin's Russia will not fight conventionally for territory in the former satellite states, but unconventionally for hearts and minds, Fota went on. "Putin knows that the flaw of the Soviet Union was that it did not have soft power."

Could Transnistria be the next Crimea?

In the wake of the annexation of Crimea by Russia, many are wondering who is next on President Vladimir Putin's list?

 

Nato's top military commander on Sunday that Russia has a large force on Ukraine's eastern border and is worried it could pose a threat to Moldova's separatist Transnistria region.