Moldova and Romania are close to severing relations. Moldova expelled two employees of the Romanian embassy on Wednesday and called its ambassador in Bucharest back for consultations. The Romanian Foreign Ministry intends to take responsive measures. This is the most heated conflict the countries have had in Moldova's 16 years of independence.
The conflict centers around a statement made by Romanian Ambassador to Moldova Filip Teodorescu late last month about the Paris Peace Accord of 1947, between the victor in World War Two and the allies of Nazi Germany. “The 1947 accord is a historical falsification that was signed because Romania was an occupied country,” Teodorescu declared, adding that it should no longer be referred to in support of the legal basis for the demarcation of the Romanian-Moldovan border. That border was the River Prut in Soviet times.
The Moldovan Foreign Ministry summoned Teodorescu for an explanation of his statement and to remind him that the 1969 Vienna Convention and 1978 UN Convention that confirm that there is no time limit on boundaries established by international agreement. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin stated that he would complain to the European Union about the statements. Romania became an EU member this year.
“I expected many of the problems in our relations to disappear after Romania joined the EU,” said Voronin, “but relations between Moldova and Romania have not changed. All those statements are so stupid they don't deserve criticism. Let Europe judge us.” True to his word, Voronin accused Romania of “continual aggression” while he was visiting Brussels last week.
Moldova and Romania have had conflicts before and, since the Party of the Communists came to power in Moldova in 2001, they have been a common occurrence. Chisinau often accuses Bucharest of funding the opposition and the Romanian Orthodox Church of wanting to set up a bishopric in Moldova, where the Russian Orthodox Church predominates. Most of all, Voronin is annoyed by Romanian President Traian Besescu's claim that there is only one people in the two countries – Romanians. But when relations between Moldova and Russia were cool and Moldova was financially straitened, Besescu came to Voronin's aid. Now that Voronin is once again welcome at the Kremlin, he is freer in expressing his true opinion of Romania.
White-haired, ruddy-faced, the monotonous fluency of his speech betraying his earlier career as a Soviet Communist party apparatchik, Vladimir Voronin has the glint of political battle in his eyes.
As he explained this week during a visit to Brussels, his adversary is Romania, the country that borders Moldova, of which he is president.
Mr Voronin was Soviet Moldavia’s interior minister in 1989 when the republic’s communist authorities used force to disperse thousands of anti-Soviet demonstrators in Chisinau, the capital.
Now Moldavia is Moldova, an independent but poor and fragile country of 4.3m people, vulnerable to pressure from Russia and Romania, its more powerful neighbours.
Mr Voronin, an ethnic Russian who became president in 2001, once pursued overtly pro-Russian policies. He adjusted his stance in 2003, largely because of Moscow’s support for Trans Dnestr, a separatist region of eastern Moldova inhabited mainly by Russians and Ukrainians.
If Moldova’s eastern, Russian problem refuses to go away, so too does its western, Romanian one.
In Brussels, Mr Voronin spoke forcefully about what he portrayed as a Romanian attempt to subvert Moldova’s independence.
“Romania doesn’t recognise our national identity. They don’t recognise a Moldovan ethnicity or Moldovan language. For them, there is no Moldovan history,” he told the Financial Times and two other reporters.
“Our relations are really difficult now with Romania. We understand that Romania is a European Union and Nato member, and we cannot afford to make political attacks on Romania. But we’ve discussed this with our European friends. More than that, I will send a message to all leaders of EU member-states in the next few days to explain the situation.”
The core of the issue is Moldovan identity. Many Romanians and foreign experts think there is practically no difference between a Romanian and a Moldovan in language and culture.
In its World Factbook, the US Central Intelligence Agency, which has no particular axe to grind on this subject, lists Moldova’s largest ethnic group as “Moldovan/Romanian, 78.2 per cent”.
The CIA also describes Moldovan as “virtually the same as the Romanian language”. Both entries neatly capture the difficulty of deciding if Moldovans are a nationality distinct from Romanians.
Much of modern Moldova fell under the Russian empire’s control in the 19th century, formed part of Romania between 1918 and 1940, and was under Soviet rule from 1945 to 1991.
In Mr Voronin’s view, Romania went beyond acceptable limits last week when its ambassador to Moldova said Bucharest would not sign a treaty recognising today’s Romanian-Moldovan frontier as delineated in a 1947 Soviet-Romanian accord.
For Moldova’s leaders, the implication was that Romania might one day lay claim to Moldovan territory. Mr Voronin said Romania was already undermining Moldovans’ identity by encouraging them to acquire Romanian passports.
“Some 10,000 Moldovan students study in Romania each year. After graduating in these institutions, the Moldovans come back with Romanian passports,” he said. “Moldovans can get Romanian citizenship on easy terms. For example, each of us can apply for Romanian citizenship by e-mail.”
However, asked if Romania might one day absorb Moldova, he strikes a defiant note. “No country has united with another one after joining the EU. It can’t be done. Moldova has existed for 650 years and will exist for at least another 6,500,” he told Moldovan TV last week.
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