The Moldovans are worried, the EU unimpressed and both irritated. Clearly the appointment of Rogozin shows a much higher Russian political interest in Transnistria. The trouble is that when Russia would rather put up a show instead of cooperating – Rogozin is the right person to (mis)handle dossiers. Given that in the last couple of months there have been some hopes regarding conflict settlement in Transnistria after the long-serving Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov lost power to the younger Evgeny Shevchuk and Moldova finally elected a president, the appointment of Rogozin is an ever bigger nuisance. Rogozin is likely to be more concerned with self-promotion than pursuing conflict-settlement. He is also likely to tighten Russia’s grip over Transnistria (Shevchuk recently spoke about adopting the Russian rouble as a currency). Rogozin’s double-hatting as co-chair of the intergovernmental commission with Moldova also give him plenty of economic levers (gas-prices negotiations and market access) into his hands that he is certain to apply to Moldova. His bulldozing style is also going to be much more intimidating for the Moldovans than to NATO member states. The EU itself is also going through a small transition as the former EU representative to the 5+2 talks on Transnistria, Miroslav Lajcak is moving from the External Action Service to the post of Foreign Minister of Slovakia.

Irrespective of Rogozin’s personal diplomatic style, it is not him who determines Russia’s foreign policy goals. Even though his appointment to NATO in 2008 was initially perceived as a clear snub, in the end he had to run along and even manage daily the US/NATO-Russian reset under Obama and Medvedev. The main problem the EU and Moldova are facing is not Rogozin, but Putin’s likely foreign policy style and ambitions in his new presidential term. Rogozin is a symptom not a cause of what might come in Russian foreign policy.

But ultimately, his ‘in-your-face’ and often intimidating negotiations style is often self-defeating. As a Brussels observer said about Rogozin’s stint in Brussels: ‘everything anyone told Rogozin immediately ended on Twitter. In the end, people stopped talking to him in confidence. Anyway, Rogozin’s “public diplomacy” actually undermined Russia’s policy on NATO.’ It might be the same on Moldova. Bad diplomats are ultimately Russia’s problem. A sharp-tongue might be good a good asset for domestic politics, but less so for diplomats operating in a competitive environment where Russia’s glory days are over. A Romanian-Moldovan proverb says that ‘a bird dies due to its own singing’ (‘pasarea pre limba ei piere’) and it applies to diplomats more than to most other professions.

The best way to deal with Rogozin is to know what you want. A decade a ago, then a member of the Russian parliament, Dmitry Rogozin was Russia’s chief negotiator with the EU regarding the transit  of Russian citizens to and from Kaliningrad via Lithuania. The Russian position was that the EU (Lithuania) cannot restrict the movement of Russian citizens from (mainland) Russia to (Kaliningrad) Russia. Russian negotiation tactics involved a lot of drum-beating, pressure on Lithuania and then attempts to have a deal with Brussels (and Berlin) over Lithuania’s head. None of it worked. The EU and Lithuania had a joint position that all Russian citizens should receive clearance to transit Lithuania, which was achieved through the so called ‘facilitated transit documents‘.

The key lesson is that for all of Rogozin’s skill and style he is no match to a united, determined negotiator who knows what it wants. Virtually everyone remembers Rogozin as the Russian negotiator on Kaliningrad, and no one the EU negotiators, but name recognition is not necessarily a recognition of success. This is the way to proceed for the EU. The best way to deal with Rogozin will be the deepening of EU-Moldova integration through faster moves towards deep and comprehensive free trade and a visa-free regime, as well as getting a foothold in Transnistria through assistance and engagement. If achieved in the next two-three years, this will also help conflict-settlement with or without Rogozin handling the dossier a few years down the road.

The progress reports are mainly concerned with legislative adjustments, which correspond to Phase 1 of the Action Plan. Evaluating realities will come next years. In order to somehow quantify the conclusions I also decided to give a ‘plus’ to the country that is ahead with some reforms, and a ‘minus’ to the country that lags behind the other (a simplified version of what ESI did with the Schengen White List project). Giving just plusses and minuses is of course quite simplistic, but nonetheless a useful exercise for a ‘quick and dirty’ look at where Moldova and Ukraine stand in relation to each other. I also decided to give additional bonuses in the form of half or full plusses to some areas which are much more important than the others (like introduction of biometric passports – a full plus, or half-pluses to having a half-functioning migration service or having implementing protocols for readmission agreements with EU member states). Finally, the table does not mention all the areas or laws mentioned in the progress reports, but only those where (comparative) value judgements are made and progress is assessed. So here is the table on who does better in the visa-dialogue with the EU: Ukraine or Moldova?

Introduction of the progress reports

Block 1: Document security, including biometrics

Block 2: Irregular migration, including readmission

Block 3: Public Order and Security

Block 4: External Relations and Fundamental Rights

Moldova-Ukraine: 14 vs 9

Moldova gets 14.5 plusses (13 plusses + 1 bonus point for having switched to the issuance of biometric passports only and 0.5 for the implementing protocols of the readmission agreement with EU members states). Correspondingly Moldova gets 9 minuses for those areas where it lags behind Ukraine. The minuses for Moldova are related to: the legislative framework in border management and the creation of a Migration Service (now the Border Guards Service of Moldova and the Migration and Asylum Bureau of the Ministry of Interior should be merged, which would result in the creation of Border Police under the Ministry of Interior), the signature of readmission agreements with Russia and several half- or non-European states from Turkey to China, anti-corruption legislation, anti-drug efforts and cooperation with the corresponding EU agency (EMCDAA) and negotiations with Eurojust on a cooperation agreements.

Ukraine gets 9.5 plusses (9 points + a 0.5 bonus for the Migration Service. The bonus is not so much for the functioning of the service ‘which needs to be consolidated’ but more due to the fact that the corresponding counterpart in Moldova has not even been mentioned in the report). The areas where Ukraine clearly needs to do some catching up are in the signing of Implementing protocols for the Readmission Agreement with the EU and moving faster on the roll-out of biometric passports. Whereas Moldova switched to the issuance of biometric passports only in January 2011 (except in consulates), Ukraine is still stuck with its policy process. In September the Ukrainian parliament adopted a law opening the way for the issuance of biometric passports, but then president Yanukovich vetoed it in October and the Government started to work on a new bill. In other words on biometric passports Moldova is at least a couple of years ahead, since it takes time and money to equip all passport-issuance authorities (so-called UOVIRRs) as well as all the border crossing points with the necessary equipment to produce and read biometric passports. It also seems that Moldova is more advanced on several fronts when it comes to legislative harmonisation with the EU on migration and asylum policy, combating trafficking in human beings, and preventing money laundering. Moldova is also more advanced in the development of a migration profile. One word of caution relates to the setting up of an anti-corruption agency. Ukraine is supposed to set up one, whereas Moldova has had one for over a decade. Yet in the case of Moldova, the anti-corruption centre often became an instrument in the hands of the high-, mid- and even low-level officials not so much to combat corruption as to benefit from it through the extraction of rents and pressures on businesses.

Finally, adopting laws is good, but implementing them is much tougher and longer. This is where the real test for Moldova and Ukraine will come. The next EU progress reports should start looking into the murkier area of how laws are implemented, not just how fast they are adopted (and even at this stage I am not very impressed by the speed of legislative adjustments. If the two countries have such lacunae on adopting laws, how long will it take to implement them?) Judging from the current report I would say the next big test for Moldova is the setting up of the Border Police and for Ukraine to move much faster to issuing biometric passports only (instead parallel issuance of both types of passports).

PS. Once Russia and EU publish their ‘common steps’ towards visa liberalisation in December, it will be interesting to look into who’s faster in fulfilling the necessary conditions in a three-way race between Russia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Seen from Ukraine, Moldova or most of the new EU member states one of the most irritating aspects of the European neighbourhood policy is that it dumps together the Southern and the Eastern neighbours of the EU. The Eastern neighbours tend to be rather arrogant about the Mediterannean neighbours of the EU. The argument goes that you cannot approach ‘European’ neighbours of the EU and ‘neighbours of Europe’ like Morocco or Syria through the same policy lenses; the East is culturally European and some would like to join the EU (Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia), whereas the South is civilisationally different and has no aspirations of EU membership etc.

Overall, I agree with the argument for differentiation. I do believe EU’s neighbourhood policy can only be effective if it approaches each of its neighbours individually, and that there can be no similar policy prescriptions to Moldova, Tunisia, Georgia, Egypt and Ukraine. This being sad, however, the debates on East vs South debates in the ENP miss two big points.

First, the negative effects of having a single policy framework, called ENP, for Morocco and Ukraine are overblown. Insufficient reforms, not differentiation is the real issue. In real life there is little Ukraine or Georgia did not get, because Morocco or Lebanon are also part of the ENP. (In a similar vein think of Croatia that is part of the same policy Stabilisation and Association framework as Albania, but is far ahead in terms of EU accession). I cannot remember a single issue where the EU would say: ‘Hang on, we cannot give this to Ukraine because Lebanon is also part of the ENP.’ And there have been dozens of times when the EU or its member states said: ‘Hang on, we cannot give this to the Eastern partner X or Y because they are not implementing the necessary reforms’ or ‘because we do not want further enlargement’ or because ‘this would create problems with Russia’. None of these reasons had anything to do with the Southern neighbours. To put it in other words, Ukraine did not get an offer of EU membership or a visa free regime with the EU not because Morocco is also part of the ENP but for entirely different reasons – Ukraine’s political mess and non-reformism, coupled with EU’s enlargement fatigue and the series of institutional crises in the EU.

Actually the real problem with differentiation lies not in the Eastern vs Southern dimension, but among the Eastern neighbours themselves (and this includes Russia). Very often if the EU is in theory ready to give something to country X, but then there is huge pressure to give it to countries Y and Z as well, and the EU ends up not giving anything to anybody, in order not to create precedents. I have personally heard the leader of an EU member state who is generally sceptical of enlargement saying that ‘If it was only for Moldova, the EU would give Moldova an EU accession perspective tomorrow [Moldova is too small to matter and easy to swallow -n.a.], but there is Ukraine… and we cannot give this to Ukraine, nor can we treat the two differently’. There are also plenty of cases where insufficient differentiation among the Eastern neighbours is much more of an issue than insufficient differentiation between the Southern and Eastern neighbours.

Second, the arrogance of the Eastern neighbours is also less justified than a few years ago. Most of the Eastern neighbours have already consolidated or are rapidly consolidating centralised political regimes, coupled with oligarchic and pretty corrupt economic systems. In real life Morocco is often more reformist (though not more democratic) and Lebanon is more pluralist than many of EU’s eastern neighbours. And this was even before decision-makers in the EU started to stake their hopes on successful consolidation of political pluralism in Tunisia.

The zeal with which the argument for delinking the Southern and Eastern neighbourhoods is perhaps understandable, but largely misses the point. Real differentiation is achieved through reforms, not branding.

In a sense, the 90s was a simpler world in which Meciar, Tudjman or Milosevic were undemocratic and non-reformist; whereas Dzurinda, Mesic, and Djindjic were both reformist and democratic. The good and the bad guys were obvious; the black was clearly distinguishable from the white. And the EU’s approach to these governments was shaped by this unbreakable link between reformism and democracy.

But it seems that the Eastern neighbourhood is different. There is much more grey than black and white. Categorising the likes of Yuschenko, Timoshenko, Saakashvili, Putin and Medvedev is more difficult. The link between being reformist and being democratic is much more blurred. Some are reformist, but less democratic; some are more democratic, but less reformist; and some are neither reformist, nor democratic.

Think of the following examples. ‘Orange Ukraine’ in 2005-2010 was the most democratic post-Soviet state with a vibrant media, lively parliament and vociferous opposition. But it was hardly reformist. Few deep reforms were even tried, let alone successfully implemented. The successive governments either did not want or could not fight corruption and try to reform state institutions like the police or customs. The elites were too divided. This prevented political monopolisation, but also made it too difficult to push for reforms which were not backed by a large political consensus. What made Ukraine democratic, also made it non-reformist.

Georgia was the opposite of Ukraine. It has been the most reformist state in the post-Soviet state in the last 20 years. The state budget increased something like 20 times since Saakashvili came to power in 2004. The sources of increased revenues were the fight against corruption, radically improved tax collection, and significant inflows of foreign investments (due to the cutting of red tape, improvement of business climate, and persistent courting of foreign investors).  The police has been reformed and corruption drastically reduced. Georgian police is amazingly efficient and non-corrupt by post-Soviet standards (even though it can be quite politicised). Georgia is also in the top of the costs of doing business ranking of the World Bank. No other post-Soviet state (the Baltics aside) have managed to modernise from such a low base as successfully as Georgia did.

But Georgia’s achievements on the democratic front have been less clear-cut. Politics is monopolised,  the opposition is virtually absent from the parliament; it is often vilified and sometimes harassed (though parts, but not all, of the opposition have also had questionable dealings with foreign intelligence, exiled oligarchs and allegedly prepared coup d’etats).  The media is less free than a few years ago. There are fewer ‘independent’ or ‘opposition’ TV channels. Certainly, the November 2007 events (police clashes with protesters left 500 people wounded and the police smashed the Imedi TV station) have not re-occurred. The government kind of learned the lessons. In spring 2009 protesters blocked Tbilisi city centre for months in a row almost without any incident with the police. A visible improvement from 2007. But then the situation has not reverted to the pre-2007 status quo ante either. There has been no visible worsening of the democratic situation in Georgia,  but no visible improvement either. And there is also wide-spread talk of Saakashvili continuing as a prime-minister after his term expires in 2013 (under a revamped constitution that beefs up the PM’s powers).  So Georgia seems to be a clear cut case of a state that is reformist, but less pluralist than ‘Orange Ukraine’.

Whereas divided politics made Ukraine pluralist, but too divided to implement difficult reforms; Georgia’s single-party government with large popular support is strong enough to push for reforms, but there are fewer checks on it and less space for political pluralism. (The international ratings capture this. Georgia’s is 12th in the World Bank’s Cost of Doing Business ranking (proxy indicator for reformism), and Ukraine is 147th. But in the Ecomomist Democracy Index Georgia is 103rd when it comes to democracy, and Ukraine at 67th place (before Yanukovich I assume) scored better than Montenegro.)

In the end the EU is quite dissapointed with with both – Ukraine’s democratic non-reformism, as well as with Georgia’s semi-democratic reformism. The EU developed a ‘Georgia fatigue’ and a ‘Ukraine fatigue’, ie became disappointed and uninterested. The one country that so far managed to avoid such EU fatigue is MOldova. It even provokes visible levels of EU enthusiasm. It is because is managed to be as pluralist as Orange Ukraine, but also more reformist. International ratings capture this. Moldova is 90th place in the Costs of Doing Business, and 65th in the Democracy Index (on a par with Serbia). Less reformist, but more democratic than Georgia; more reformist and similarly democratic to Orange Ukraine. But maintaining this reputation and continuing to improve its ‘reformist’ credentials will still be very hard work.

This disconnect between democracy and reformism is not unusual. Think of ideas such as ‘enlightened authoritarianism’ or ‘the Singapore model’. They both imply reformism without democracy. Also think of the ‘reformist’ Morocco, and ‘pluralist’, ‘divided’, but often politically stuck, Lebanon.

But this disconnect between ‘reformism’ and ‘democracy’ still creates problems for how the EU thinks of its neighbours and how it designs policies that aim at rewarding ‘progress’. Most of the EU hopes to see its Eastern partners  being both democratic and reformist. But this might be a bit too much to expect. The EU should probably lower the expectations bar and accept that having either ‘reformism’ or ‘pluralism’ are already good achievements that deserve more support, not ‘fatigue’. At the end of the day most other EU neighbours are neither reformist, nor democratic. Both East and South.

PS: All this being said, I do not believe in the model of undemocratic reformism in the Eastern neighbourhood. I do not buy the argument that ‘authoritarian modernisation’ China-style is something that should or could be emulated in the EU’s neighbourhood. Too many authoritarian states extol the ‘Chinese modernisation’ argument domestically or internationally, explicitly or implicitly, to explain their non-democratic non-reformism. Perhaps ‘authoritarian modernisation’ is a model that has succeeded in a number of cases (Singapore, China, South Korea), but in 90% of the cases authoritarianism is used to crush decent and benefit from corruption, rather than modernise. Most of EU’s neighbours fall in those 90 percent of non-democratic non-reformists, and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future.

Voronin’s fin de regime

On 9/11 Vladimir Voronin announced his resignation. Except for Communist party members few ventured to say a good word about Voronin’s eight years in power and except for the pro-Communist TV channels few seemed to regret it. It was also striking just how short and muted the farewell was (see a piece I wrote on that in Romanian). When Eltsin or Shevardandze resigned (in 1999 and 2003 respectively) their departures were historical events that sparked heated discussions in talk-shows, newspapers, or public transportation for days, if not weeks. You could not avoid thinking of their (mixed) historical legacy and you could not avoid a pervasive sense of entering a new epoch.

Nothing of that sort happened in Moldova. I was in Chisinau on the day of Voronin’s resignation. Everyone seemed strikingly uninterested in Voronin. Everyone was much more concerned with the gossips of the future: the formation of a new government by the Alliance for European Integration and whether the Communists will vote for the Alliance’s candidate to the presidency (Marian Lupu – himself until last June a Communist party member), or will provoke new elections by boycotting the election of a new president (the Alliance has 53 votes in the parliament and 61 votes are needed to elect the president). Perhaps this was an indicator that psychologically the country has already moved beyond Voronin even before his formal resignation.

Internally divided rivals?

On Friday 25 Sept Vlad Filat, 40, will be appointed as prime minister. The negotiations on the new government are almost completed. The Alliance has some good candidates for some posts (economy, foreign affairs, justice, finance), but obviously lacked good specialists for some other posts (culture, education, interior, youth etc).

Both the Alliance for European Integration and the Communists seem united, but have some underlying potential fissures. The Alliance’s likely fault line is between the Liberal Democratic Party’s leader Vlad Filat (the current prime-minister) and the leader of the Democratic Party Marian Lupu (the Alliance’s candidate for presidency). Filat’s claims to a strong position in the government stems from the fact that the Lib-Dems are the most popular party in the coalition. Lupu’s claim stems from the fact that the victory of the opposition is owed to his split from the Communist party in June and his decision to join the liberals, rather than the Communists, in a coalition after the July elections.

Future tensions are unavoidable. However, the bigger question is if these tensions will paralyze the country’s modernization like it happened in Ukraine since the Orange Revolution, or Moldova can embark on a more “Central European” type of creative tensions that open up the political system, create checks and balances and make reforms possible (at the end of the day between 1994 and 2004 Latvia had 10 prime-ministers, while Estonia – 7). I guess it will be a combination of the two…

The Communists are quickly learning the role of being an opposition. The Communists start sounding precisely like the former opposition used to just a few months ago (though the Communists have fewer reasons to do so). Back in July one of the Communist party leaders was saying that the main trait of the liberal parties is ‘yelping’ (ныть). Now the Communists accuse the Alliance of being undemocratic, authoritarian, and that they have usurped power. This sounds absurd and not credible…

The Communist party’s biggest problem is the reason for its greatest success: Voronin. Voronin created this party, brought it to power, held it together for a decade and a half but is now unable to let it go. Instead of resigning after loosing the July elections he tries to hang on. The party is also split between roughly two wings: ‘old’ and ‘young’ (some Communist MPs are under 30 and their informal leader is in his early 40s).

Perhaps paradoxically the ‘young wing’ might be more intransigent: they need Voronin for another 1-2 years to strengthen their position in the party against the older generation, and they are mostly ultra-leftist Che Guevara admirers (some of their blogs are here and here). They also sound more intransigent vis-a-vis the Alliance for European Integration. The older guard is very diverse, but many of them might prefer a deal with the new government – voting for a new president in exchange for some (political, economic and personal) guarantees.

The chances for new early elections next year are high. Many communists think that if they don’t vote for a new president in the following few weeks and thereby provoke early elections next year – they might return to power since the population will blame the effects of the economic crisis on the new government. The Alliance at its turn thinks that with IMF, US and EU (and perhaps even Russian) assistance they will be able to manage the crisis. In fact the Alliance argues that an indication of early support from the IMF might help persuade the Communists vote for the Alliance’s president and not provoke early elections next year. The new government also believes that in case of early elections the Communists will gain even fewer votes since they will not control the state aparatus, the state media and the patronage networks that come with incumbency.

Whatever the outcome of the multi-lateral heavy horse trading of the following weeks, all the political actors, including the Communists, are much more concerned with their future than with Vladimir Voronin’s past. And Moldova is now stuck between its third and fourth president.

Among the more interesting results are (see page 35 of this opinion poll):

• Georgia comes first in pro-EU sentiment  with 36% being in favour of integration with the EU. But it also comes first in pro-independence sentiment with 48% (not willing to join any integrationist blocks). Unsurprisingly only 3% want integration into a Russian-led Union.
• Moldova comes second in pro-EU sentiment with 33% in favour of joining the EU (with 26% in favour of joining a Russian-led union). Among the post-Soviet states, Moldova also has the lowest degree of support for its own ‘full independence’ (20%).
• In Belarus, interestingly enough 23% want integration with Russia, while 20% want integration into the EU (and 28% want full independence). It is almost suprising that almost as the number of Belarussians that want integration into the EU and integration with Russia is almost equal.
• In Ukraine – 20% want integration into the EU and 34% integration into a Russia-Ukraine-Belarus-Kazakhstan union (and 12% back into the USSR), while 23% want full ‘nezalezhnost’ (independence).
• In Russia 36% don’t want any integration with other states or groups oif states, while 20% want the restoration of USSR and 15% want a union with Belarus, Ukraine and Kazahstan. Thus Russia itself is split between a go-it-alone attitude and a desire to reintegrate some of its former periphery.
• Perhaps surprisingly, in Latvia (and EU member state) only 31% want integration into the EU (10% integration with Russia) and 35% want full independence. Thus pro-EU sentiment in Latvia is lower than in Georgia and Moldova.

UPDATE: As the comments below attest – this poll is neither uncontroversial, not uncotested. The reason I put it on this blog is because I think many in the EU are hubristic abouts EU’s soft power. Way too many think EU’s power of attraction and magnetism works almost automatically, and the EU will transform its neighbours almost by default, simply because the EU attractive, it provides the best way of organising international relations and its successes are uncontested. Unfortunately, this is not so. The EU will have to invest much more political will and resources into its foreign policy if it really wants to shape its neighbourhood and the world at large. The hubris of soft power is not a good recipe for an effective foreign policy. I believe the EU is the best model of organising international relations, but its soft power is not automatic and good models do not always win.

UPDATE 2: The numbers on the foreign policy orientation of Ukraine have raised some controversy. I was not analysing Ukraine’s public opinion, but one specific opinion poll. However, it is fair to supply more data on Ukraine. After some digging – here is more data on Ukraine’s public opinion on the foreign policy orientation of the country. The Razumkov centre supplies the following:

Question 1: Does Ukraine need to join the European Union?

• Yes – 43% in December 2008 (compared to 65% in 2002, 0r 54% in 2007).
• No – 35% in 2008 (compared to 14% in 2002 and 29 in 2007)

Question 2: which foreign policy direction should be a priority for Ukraine (Russia, EU, USA, CIS)?

• in favour of the EU – 27.5% (compared to 39% in 2005)
• in favour of Russia 51% (compared to 34 in 2005)

If you add the attitudes towards NATO it seems like Ukrainian public opinion is less enthusiastic about both NATO and EU than in was in 2002-2003-2005.

If you ask me, I would also consider the Razumkov Centre opinion polls more reliable than the Eurasia monitor.

on Moldova:  if the question is “are you in favour of joining the EU?” – 72% are in favour (IPP poll, March 2009)

Selections vs elections

For the last decade, post-Soviet states have developed three types of managing transitions of power. None of these included “elections”:

• The first is the model of not transfering power at all. This is the case of Belarus, Azerbaijan and the Central Asian “stans” (with the partial exception of Kyrgyzstan);
• the second model is “project successor”, where an incumbent president passes power to a chosen successor who is then confirmed through popular “selections” (as opposed to “elections”). Russia was the first one to do that (first with Eltsin transferring power to Putin in 2000, and then Putin appointing Medvedev as president in 2008 in a hybrid scenario of “succession” and “consolidated authoritarianism” models). Armenia managed successfully a “project successor” from Kocharyan to Sargsyan in February 2008. And Ukraine’s Kuchma tried, but failed, in 2004.
• The third model was to challenge the rulers on the street through “coloured revolutions” taking place after fake elections. In Ukraine the Orange Revolution thwarted Kuchma’s “project successor”, while Georgia’s Rose Revolution dethroned Shevardnadze. In Georgia and Ukraine – the street protests, not the elections as such lead to a change in power. In Georgia and Ukraine, fake elections sparked protests (and the “revolutions”), but protests, not elections caused transfers of power.

Thus, the most wide-spread model of transfers of power through elections seems NOT to be modus operandi of post-Soviet elites. Against such a background, Moldova’s elections come as a surprise.

Moldova’s “Alliance for European Integration”

Today, the four Moldovan (former) opposition parties – Lib-Dems, Liberals, Democrats and Our Moldova alliance – have agreed to create a governing coalition that will push the Communist party into opposition (I explained the Moldovan political landscape here). The name of the coalition is “Alliance for European Integration”. Its key priorities are the dismantling of the “vertical of power”, rule of law, real implementation (as opposed to “declarative implementation”) of Moldova’s commitment vis-à-vis the EU, European integration and strategic partnerships with Russia and the US. The Alliance has a very narrow majority of 53 deputies out of 101, while the Communists have 48 (52 votes are needed to elect the speaker and prime minister, and 61 votes to elect the new president).

The press-conference of the four party leaders was quite dull and uninspiring. They read their coalition agreement and took questions. None of them looks terribly impressive or persuasive as politicians who can lead and energize voters. Vlad Filat (Lib-Dems) and Lupu (Democrats) are technocrats with very good teams of professionals in their parties (and Filat seems to be a good “talent-manager”), Urecheanu (“Our Moldova”) was bitter against the Communist, and Ghimpu (Liberals) who is perceived to be the more nationalist party spoke Russian at the press conference which was a good sign of openness.

But the good news is that they seem serious and non-euphoric. All seem to understand how difficult it will be to govern Europe’s poorest state in times of an economic crisis and with such a narrow majority. There is no Orange- or Rose Revolution style euphoric mood. The four parties need to elect a new president which will be impossible without having the support of at least 8 Communist MPs. The Communists can decide to block the election of the new president, which will mean that Voronin will stay on as acting president until new (early) elections next year (the hope is that disunity and the economic crisis will damage the new government opening the way for a comeback for the Communists).

A newly elected deputy also tells me that he will have to forget about trips to Europe (in delegations or for conferences) , because the majority in the parliament is so narrow. If one or two persons leave, the coalition might not be able to pass laws. That is a bit of a paradox since Moldova will need a lot of external support that will need to be mobilized through an active diplomacy at all levels. And many of the new MPs are among the best people that can represent Moldova abroad.

In any case all, Moldovan political parties are enmeshed in heavy multilateral horse-trading. It will last for another two months minimum, if not another three-four years. This is possible, but the Communist have accepted publicly their defeat and even suggested they might vote for a new president (at the end of the day Voronin was re-elected as president in 2005 with the support of a dozen opposition deputies, including many current MPs from the Democratic and Liberal Democratic parties). It is sure that the Communist will make the life of the new government as difficult as possible. Being the biggest party in parliament, having control of most media-resources in Moldova and being the richest political party (and economic centre of power) this will not be difficult. But they have not tried to use blatantly authoritarian means to stay in power. In this sense they also seem less brutally post-Soviet than most other post-Soviet governing cliques. While in the opposition the Communists have a chance to reform, modernise and start prepare for a post-Voronin era bringing younger people to the forefront (this process partly started already).

Moldova as Central Europe in the 90s?

Not really and not yet. But Central Europe in the 90s provides a good selection of cases that are worth comparing with Moldova today. Slovakia is one. In the 90s Slovak politics was dominated by Vladimir Meciar, a rather authoritarian ruler (though Slovakia in the 90s was more pluralist than Moldova in the last eight years, primarily due to more pluralistic media, a more sophisticated society, more developed civil society and a smaller concentration of economic power). Meciar left after loosing elections in 1998, and the new prime-minister Dzurinda brought Slovakia into the EU through a set of successful reforms.

Romania is another example. In 1996 Romania’s president Ion Iliescu (and his reformed Communists – the Party of Social Democracy) lost elections. In 1996-2000 an extremely messy coalition of democratic forces (the Democratic Convention) muddled through, rather than governed. But against the background of political scandals and economic crisis under the Democratic Convention – most have missed that politics, media and the economy in Romania became irreversibly decentralised. When Ion Iliescu and (PDSR) came back into power in 2000, democracy, free media, political pluralism, and alternative centres of economic power in Romania were irreversibly established.

Obviously every country’s transition from socialism to democracy had its unique set of models and circumstances (and many countries do not even pretent to be in “transition”). All transitions are sui generis. At this stage Moldova is strengthening its break from the typically authoritarian post-Soviet governance models, and might be evolving towards the messier style of Central European politics in the 90s. It has no obvious Dzurinda who would accelerate and implement successfully a European reform agenda, and most importantly it does not have an EU accession perspective. Politics will almost inevitably be incredibly messy. The most likely scenario is a combination of Ukrainian-style political chaos and “Romania in the 90s”-style of de-monopolisation of political and economic power. But political chaos is not bad in itslef. Latvia changed 9 governments between 1994 and 2004, but when it comes to reforms, Latvia is light-years ahead of countries like Ukraine or Moldova, let alone the “stable” Belarus or Azerbaijan. What matters in Moldova is that “elections matter” (meaning that governments can be changed through elections ) and that is so far a structural factor.

The Communists (reformed or not) might be back in power one, four or eight years; or they might disintegrate as a party when Voronin retires. What matters at this stage for Moldova is to drastically, quickly and irreversibly de-monopolise the political and economic system of the country. Moldova is not yet “Central Europe”, but has so far managed to avoid a typically authoritarian post-Soviet model of political and economic power that makes elections irrelevant.

To begin with, the Eastern Partnership summit in Prague, judged by its attendance list, was a near-failure. If the objective of the Eastern partnership was to relaunch the neighbourhood policy and raise its political profile, its start was not impressive. The Swedish presidency-led “listening tour” would help relaunch politically the neighbourhood policy in the East. It would repair some of the political damage done by the unimpressive Eastern partnership summit in May 2009. But the purpose of such a tour should not only be symbolic.

The EU “listening tour” would serve a second purpose of starting to involve the neighbourhood states in the debates on the new European security  architecture, initiated by president Medvedev in June 2008. The EU thinks of a possible respone to Medvedev as outlined in the Munich 2009 speech by Javier Solana. But listening to the neighbourhood countries’ concerns would be a good way for the EU to formulate its response to Medvedev’s proposals. At the end of the day many, if not most, of the sensitive issues in EU-Russia security relations are in the Eastern neighbourhood.

Third, there are very few high-level visits to most of the Eastern neighbourhood by EU heads of state, foreign ministers or senior EU officials. The Eastern neighbours feel ignored precisely at the moment when this region causes increasing trouble to the European security and EU-Russia relations. New EU member states used to visit the neighbourhood relativley often. But they lacked the political weight and now they are too busy with the economic crisis. They are also dissapointed by the likes of Youshchenko, Saakashvili and Voronin. The feeling of “neighbourhood fatigue” is pervasive, but this will only make the neighbourhood more likely to cause trouble. The EU needs to be present in the region, through high-level visits as well. Especially when things are bad.

Fourth, the last time an EU Troika tour of the Eastern neighbourhood took place was in 2001 – during the previous Swedish EU Presidency. That visit is remembered in the region. At that time, the Troika consisting of the late Anna Lindh, Javier Solana, Chris Patten and Louis Michel visited Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan (only Belarus was off the map). There has been no similar tour to the region since then. For example, the only time Javier Solana visited Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (except a second visit to Moldova in April 2009) was during that tour.

The Swedish EU Presidency has the standing and credibility to launch such a “listening tour”, which would help relaunch the Eastern Partnership as well as feed into the EU’s response to a debate on the European security architecture that is likely to keep the EU-Russia-neighbourhood security agenda busy for the next few years.

The US and Russia are a bit too busy dancing their great power tango under the sounds of a realpolitik syrene. The EU has been busy elbowing itself into the debate. As a result no one tried to involve the Eastern neighbourhood states in a meaningful discussion on the new European security architecture. The neighbourhood states themselves are too busy with their daily security, economic or post-election crisis to think strategically about the bigger picture of European security. The EU should be the one that starts listening and involving the small and fragile states of the European periphery into the discussion of their own future. This is what the EU should come with to the great powers’ negotiating table.

I just spent a few days in Abkhazia and Tbilisi. I will write more about the trip in the following days. But it was interesting to see that the word “war” refers to different historical events. For the Georgians the phrase “after the war” means “after the August 2008 war”. For the Abkhaz (and I guess the 240.000 Georgian refugees from Abkhazia) the term “war” refers to a the war in 1992-93. For the Abkhaz “after the war” means  “after the 1992-1993 war”, while the August 2008 war is referred to as “the August events”. For Georgians the 1992-1993 war in Abkhazia is “the conflict in Abkhazia”. And for the Russians “the war” refers to the great patriotic war of 1941-1945 (which is symbolically different from the Second World War, as some Russian like to stress). So here it comes three nations that fought wars against each-other in the recent past – have entirely different meanings of the word “war”.

The pattern is not so different in the case of Moldova and Transnistria. For Transnistria “the war” is the 1992 armed conflict with Moldova. For Moldova, the 1992 clashes are just the “Transnistria conflict”.

“The war” is the event that shakes the core foundations of a state or nation, and the rest are just conflicts. “The war” is the one war that affects most of the population directly (that is why the 1992-93 is “the war” for the Abkhaz, but not for the most Georgians). So if one wants to understand which of the wars had the most decisive impact on the psyche of a nation, one has to look into what this nations calls “the war”.

The fact that the term “war” refers to recent events, also shows the degree to which “war” is a defining moment for contemporary politics in the South Caucasus, as opposed to most of Europe where “war” refers to historical events.

PS: I also wonder what is the by default meaning of the term “war” for Serbia?

When Georgia plunged into crisis in November 2007, Peter Semneby, EUSR for South Caucasus, flew immediately to Tbilisi and sought to diffuse the crisis by mediating between government and opposition. As the opposition launched again a series to rallies to unseat president Saakashvili less than two months ago, Peter Semneby is trying again to diffuse the crisis through mediation.

EUSR Moldova, Kalman Mizsei is doing just the same. After Moldovan protesters attacked the parliament and the presidential palace on the 7 April 2009, and the government responded with a severe and brutal crackdown, Kalman Mizsei flew to Chisinau from the very first day of the crisis and tried hard to convince the government and opposition on the need for political dialogue.

Since then, both EU Special representatives are spending most of their time in Tbilisi and Chisinau as go-betweens the government and opposition. And the secessionist conflicts – are much more marginal to their agenda. Certainly, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria are not off the cards. But the domestic crises in Georgia and Moldova make their jobs even more daunting.

This is a sign of new times in the Eastern neighbourhood. Until recently the hope was to reintegrate Transnistria with Moldova, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia with Georgia; now EU’s might become more modest (at least on Georgia) – to keep the country on a path towards more democratization and reforms. And even these goals are far from certain in the medium term.

If a couple of years ago it was assumed that Georgia and Moldova were more or less “moving into the right direction” (implementing reforms described in the Action Plans with the EU) and the main source of instability were the secessionist conflicts, now the situation has changed. The sources of instability have multiplied considerably as they now stem from domestic politics, increasing centralisation, growing use of authoritarian practices, societal polarisation, economic crisis, unfair elections and Russian attempts to use some of these crises to promote a sphere of influence. The weak states of the neighbourhood are torn apart more than ever before in the last 20 years by domestic and external pressures. Russkii Zhurnal, a Russian magazine published by a Kremlin-connected NGO, even dedicated a special issue on the need to “manage” the de-sovereignisation of neighbourhood states in times of crisis. This is not a great conspiracy, but there is a debate in Russia on how to manage the de-sovereignisation of the post-Soviet states.

These trends have many policy implications for the EU. One, is that the job of EU special representatives is becoming much more complex. Their teams of experts on crisis-management, conflict mediation and peace-keeping, might need to be complemented with new advisers on democratization and constitutional reform (though discussions on conflict-settlement in Transnistria were already related to democracy-building and constitution-making anyway). It could also be useful to explore the idea of double-hatting (or merging) the post of EU Special representative to Moldova with the post of Head of Delegation of the European Commission to Moldova. As things stand now, the Council-based EUSR does not have the necessary financial “arguments” to apply conditionality on Moldova in a much more systematic way, while the European Commission is not involved enough in political issues in Moldova.

But a broader conceptual overhaul of the entire EU policy towards the region might be necessary. When the Eastern Partnership was initiated a year ago in a Swedish-Polish initiative, the policy was supposed to deal with long-term institution-building and reforms. But in the current context the Eastern partnership needs to be complemented with shorter-term measures that would allow the EU to manage political, economic, social and security crises in the neighbourhood.

EU praises itself for being an able soft power. But soft power is slow power. In the Eastern neighbourhood, all too often the potential effects of soft power (and the European neighbourhood policy) do not take root because EU policies are not shielded from the storm of crises ravaging throughout the neighbourhood. The challenge for the EU is to complement its focus on long-term institution building with shorter-term “crisis management” interventions. Events on the ground are forcing the EU to do just that.