Foreign Affairs on December 6–19, 2005

| e-journal #64 |

The Republic of Moldova — Council of Europe

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has passed the 24th judgment sentencing the Republic of Moldova. This judgment is repeatedly taken on a case in which our country was already sanctioned early this year, but the authorities did not execute so far the court ruling on retrocession of a house nationalised in 1941 to plaintiff Serghei Popov, in compliance with a 1997 definitive judgment. First time, the ECHR had sentenced the Republic of Moldova to pay damages of 6,000 euros, while the recent judgment increased the compensation up to 7,000 euros.
Observers of the November 27 local elections and December 11, 2005 repeat scrutiny on behalf of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (CLRAE) recommend the revision of the electoral legislation. In particular, they recommend the Moldovan authorities to establish a political consensus on the need to reduce or to annul the electoral threshold because the elections were invalidated because of absenteeism of population, though they were free and fair.
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has approved a response to the recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) “on execution of obligations of the Russian Federation.” According to the document, the Committee of Ministers made common cause with PACE regarding execution of obligations towards countries in the region, insisting that Russia respect its commitments, especially on withdrawal of troops from the Republic of Moldova. Also, the Committee of Ministers urged the Russian Federation to take all the necessary measures in order to release political prisoners Tudor Petrov-Popa and Andrei Ivantoc, in compliance with the ECHR judgment on this case.

The Republic of Moldova — European Union

The European Union has annulled the travel restrictions for eight Transnistrian officials, which it introduced in 2004 for obstructing the activity of Moldovan schools. It still keeps the restrictions for two officials from the Ribnita city, who are involved in actions against Moldovan schools, as well as for 17 representatives of the self-proclaimed administration that the E.U. blames for halting a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the eastern breakaway enclave of Transnistria.
A group of experts of the European Commission is expected in Moldova early next year to evaluate the state of electro-energy sector of the republic and possibilities of energy interconnection of Moldova with energy systems of neighbouring countries Romania and Ukraine. Experts of the European Commission will examine the state of the high tension lines Balti-Suceava and Gotesti-Falciu, as well as will estimate possibilities to build the 330-KW high tension line Balti-Novodnestrovsk (Ukraine), which Moldova wants to use in order to increase the capacity of importation of electricity from Ukraine.

The Republic of Moldova — OSCE

The Moldovan foreign and European integration minister has warned that Russia’s stance at the Ljubljana OSCE summit “harms the authority and image of the organisation.” Expressing regret with the failure to adopt a declaration on Moldova, Andrei Stratan said that the democratisation and demilitarisation of the Transnistrian region are indispensable conditions for the conflict resolution and, therefore, the Russian troops must be unconditionally pulled out. In the context, the Moldovan diplomacy head sought the organisation of an international inspection at the Russian ammunition depots in the eastern region of Moldova and the monitoring of the military-industrial complex in the Transnistrian region.
The E.U., NATO, U.S. and Romania have regretted the failure of the OSCE summit to adopt a document on Moldova. Delegations of the United Kingdom, Finland, Hungary, Slovenia, the Baltic Countries, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden backed Chisinau’s stance on Transnsitrian problem. The Ukrainian delegation did not tackle the problem of the illegal military presence of Russia in the Republic of Moldova.

The Republic of Moldova — Romania

Vladimir Voronin and Traian Basescu have discussed many issues related to bilateral and international cooperation within a visit to the Romanian capital on occasion of the opening of the Moldovan wine festival. The talks focussed on settlement of the Transnistrian conflict, institution of the international monitoring on the Moldovan-Ukrainian border, resumption of the Transnistrian settlement negotiations in a larger format. The sides found out that the actions taken in this area “did not register evident progress” so far. Basescu assured Voronin of Romania’s full support, including in settling difficulties related to excessive rise of gas and electricity prices.
Moldova’s wine exports to Romania rose about three-fold in 2005, compared with the similar period of 2004. Moldova exported wine worth about 900,000 dollars to Romania in the first ten months of this year (the supplies turned over about 295,000 dollars in 2004). The Moldovan authorities hope to increase very much the wine exports to the neighbouring country the next two years, so that Romania rank the second place after the Russian Federation in the list of importers of Moldovan wines.

The Republic of Moldova — Russian Federation

The Russian Federation considers “illegal and counterproductive” the correlation between ratification of the Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and fulfilment of commitments that it had assumed at the 1999 Istanbul OSCE summit. According to officials of the Russian foreign department, the Russian-Georgian and Russian-Moldovan agreements on withdrawal of the Russian ammunition and military bases from these countries “have a bilateral nature and do not generate any obligations of Russia towards third countries.”
The Republic of Moldova will support Ukraine’s entry in the World Trade Organisation, while negotiations with the Russian Federation “will go on.” Officials of the Economics and Trade Ministry said that the Republic of Moldova is actively negotiating with the Russian Federation and consultations envisage “commercial-economic problems,” especially on “indirect exportation duties after principle of destination country.”
The Russian authorities are decided to increase the natural gas price for Moldova. Although no final price was established yet, the sides have agreed during a visit of a Moldovan governmental delegation to Moscow that the price be adjusted to the medium European level and this would mean a two-fold rise compared with the present tariff. The Russian side invokes “economic” reasons as official motives of higher prices, but most of experts and public opinion are sure of existence of a political component of the planned measure. It seems that the Moldovan authorities have solicited meanwhile some international organisations to help reducing the impact of new prices of energy resources and representatives of the International Monetary Fund replied that Moldova could be provided some financial aid. The aid could be provided to the National Bank of Moldova but only after an analysis of trade balance and balance of payments.
The Russian Federation and Ukraine have signed a joint declaration in which they saluted the resumption of the Transnistrian settlement negotiations with the participation of U.S. and E.U. representatives. The sides confirmed their decision “to coordinate their practical measures aimed at a definitive settlement of the conflict,” while the Ukrainian initiative in the area was appreciated as base that encouraged the resumption of negotiations and the recent proposals of the Russian Federation on implementation of the Ukrainian initiative “have a substantial nature.” Russia and Ukraine consider that the stability of the settlement model must be ensured through a system of guarantees and propose the examination of the “possibility to turn the peacekeeping operation into a peace guaranteeing mission under the OSCE aegis.”

Moldova in the world

Claudia Nolte, developer of a resolution on the Republic of Moldova that the German Bundestag unanimously adopted in 2004 and had a positive resonance on the European arena, has described the situation in our country in an interview with a Chisinau-based publication. According to the German parliamentarian, the democracy in Moldova is not “true” yet because fundamental freedoms and independence of public mass media is formal, while democratic culture has an insufficient level. Nolte sees the solution of Moldova’s problem in reorganisation and modernisation of public services, education of a new generation of politicians to follow the rules of democracy accepted by Europeans.

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