CHISINAU LETTER: The EU is determined not to admit a country with an unresolved territorial dispute, writes ANGELA LONG
THIS PLEASANT, park-dotted city of 750,000 is the capital of Moldova, the poorest country in Europe. And that’s not hyperbole, but statement, supported by woeful GDP of about €750 per head.
Yet in those parks, on the park benches, are rows of . . . not beggars, but lean, well-dressed young people absorbed in their laptops. And if you look closely, electric leads from many of the computers snake across the dusty late summer terrain to power points strung in the trees. Where’s the poverty, the visitor wonders, also noting the red convertible Mercedes and the late model Jeeps parked along Stefan Cel Mare Boulevard?
Well, the Moldovans say, it’s not so far away. Take one of the Soviet-era buses into the countryside (if it makes it), where 60 per cent of the population live. There you’ll be lucky to find drinkable water, sewerage is rudimentary, and urban salaries of a whopping €80 a month are only a distant dream.
Confused? Then try sorting out the electoral impasse, still in play, which has been rolling on since April. Then, elections tipped out the Communists who had ruled Moldova since 2001. However, the successful coalition did not have enough votes to proclaim a president – they had 60, and the magic number is 61.
So repeat elections were held in July, after which eight of the former Communists defected, and with a few other combinations and calculations a government was formed on September 25th. But still the numbers to choose a president are elusive. A constitutional provision that parliament cannot be dissolved more than once a year has been muddying the waters regarding another vote.
Even this conundrum is not as fascinating as the long-running Transnistrian dispute. Moldova may seem to be on the edge of our world; many people might think it is still Moldavia, or that Moldavia was actually a neighbouring country of Zenda (as in Anthony Hope’s novel).
But in Moldova’s Transnistrian region in the east, across the Dniester river, lies the steel-capped toe-hold of Russia, which maintains about 2,000 troops there. These seem to live a gentle existence, and about 500 of them are officially termed “peacekeepers”. This, a legacy of a turn of the century agreement after Moldova became an independent republic in 1991, is a situation where “peacekeepers” is actually an appropriate term, as all is tranquil. Not a shot has been fired in anger since 1992, EU officials and Moldovan politicians proudly proclaim.
It must be nice for the Russian soldiers. The climate is good for a big part of the year, wine and cognac flow when they are off-duty, and many of their ethnic relatives are all around, friendly and helpful, as Moldovans tend to be. The other Russian soldiers include a contingent which guards an arms dump, a leftover from the cold war and the 14th Russian army.
“Someone should write a book about Russian arms dumps across the Federation and Europe,” muses Philip Kelmer, head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) office in Chisinau. He, along with a separate team of EU officials, is tasked with bringing an end to the “frozen conflict” over Transnistria, or Pridniestrovia, as its self-proclaimed government calls it.
Here Russian subventions top up pensions, the currency is called the rouble, and a large poster of President Medvedev shaking hands with the leader of Pridniestrovia, a bald man in a suit called Oleg Smernov, adorns the main boulevard. A giant statue of Lenin stands outside the parliament building, and more contemporary full-colour posters of Vladimir Putin and Medvedev decorate the outer wall of a popular restaurant.
Medvedev, as always, looks like Noel Dempsey auditioning for James Bond.
It is clear just how strategically significant the Russian Federation is for this pocket of territory just south of Ukraine. “We have an agreement with the United Russia Party, and we wish to deepen and broaden our co-operation,” says smooth Evgeny Shevchuk, head of the Renewal Party, who states he does not think this year’s 20th anniversary of the disintegration of the Soviet Union is any cause for celebration.
Without resolution of the Transnistrian problem, Moldova can never join the EU. Especially after the accession of Cyprus, Brussels is determined not to allow in a country with an unresolved territorial dispute. Yet Russia is not likely to easily relinquish this ongoing opportunity to be a stone in the heel of Nato’s shoe.
The global financial crisis has seen a drop in remittances from abroad, from the hundreds of thousands of Moldovans aged between 20 and 50 who have left their children, parents and homes to work in EU countries.
Without EU membership, Moldova, desperately poor despite the laptops in the park, faces a bleak future.