Experts Discuss the Challenges of Moldova’s “Single-Vector” Foreign Policy

The government's behavior in the Russian direction is like a bull in a china shop, singlehandedly destroying the prospects for solving various crucial for the republic strategic tasks

ANTON SHVETS Activity surrounding our country has peaked in recent weeks. International visits to Chisinau are being paid one after another. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde visited the capital following in the footsteps of the US State Department delegation led by Robin Dunnigan. And now it’s time for the Russian Foreign Ministry delegation headed by Ambassador-at-Large Vitaly Tryapitsyn to visit. Our officials, on their part, also pay regular visits to Moscow: this has already been noted by Deputy Prime Ministers Andrei Spinu and Vladislav Kulminski, who are forced to sort out the critical situation with the Russian gas supply, vital for Moldova in the autumn-winter period. Except the results of Chisinau's conversation with the international community can hardly be considered satisfactory, primarily in the Russian direction. And the reasons for this are clear – a number of explicitly hostile steps by Moldova in international relations and problems in negotiations with Pridnestrovie. Moldova now faces a range of traditional challenges that it has never been able to tackle on its own. Moreover, in order to achieve certain goals, it is crucial to have mutual understanding, trust and respect in relations with the Russian Federation. Maia Sand will need time to see it and somehow squeeze this idea into her “monopolar” world view. But the blunders committed have already put the authorities in a perplexing situation. Moldova, in the harsh conditions of the exploded global market situation, needs to sustain the price of natural gas supplied by Gazprom PJSC, without making the Moldovan economy shut down or local households freeze in winter. What is the government’s solution of this situation? At every corner, they claim their commitment to the urgent introduction of the so-called “Third Energy Package” for the sole reason to take away the property and the decisive vote of Gazprom PJSC in the gas market of Moldova. The fact that since 2016, when the new gas legislation of the republic was adopted, no Cabinet of Ministers has been able to implement this ambitious task doesn’t bother Maia Sandu, Natalia Gavrilita and the company at all. Then the government strikes an attitude, dodging negotiations with Russian representatives and outsourcing the issue to Moldovagaz JSC, which is still under the supervision of Gazprom PJSC. That is, basically, the Russian company Moldovagaz JSC should agree with the Russian Gazprom PJSC on how the Russian gas monopolist will take its assets, control over the gas transportation system and personally grant it all to Moldova. And then they should supplement it with a discount on gas at prices four times lower than market prices and a full cancellation of the $7 billion gas debt of Pridnestrovian consumers. A reasonable feasible plan, that’s for sure. Especially amidst Maia Sandu’s exercises in the format of an Associative Trio, with the only goal of declaring hate towards Russia, and its current leadership, and active involvement in the newly created “Crimean Platform”, riling Moscow. At the moment when the most incompetent gas and electricity plan in Moldova’s history begins to fall apart, the “talking heads” from the Action and Solidarity Party begin to speculate on gas supplies to the left bank. Chisinau is starting to threaten not only with outage of the gas supply to Pridnestrovie, ignoring geographical and technological factors, but also implies not only troubles with the Moldovan GRES owned by Russian business and supplying electricity to the right bank, but also overall restrictions on export-import operations of the region. Yet, none of these threats can be implemented in the near future anyway, and all parties involved are well aware of this. All these inept attacks performed, Chisinau sent two delegations to Moscow with the highest possible demands, starting for some reason with Vladislav Kulminski. Andrei Spinu was the next one to listen to the PJSC Gazprom's position, but again not from Alexey Miller's, but one of his many deputies' mouth. Another task before Chisinau, formulated at the highest level by Washington, is to remove and dispose Russian weapons in the village of Kolbasna on the territory of Transdniestria near the border of Ukraine. The Soviet weapons depot is guarded by the military of the Operational Group of Russian Forces - the fact used by Tiraspol and Moscow as one of the pretexts to maintain their presence. The Kremlin has repeatedly signaled to the Moldovan side in recent years about its readiness to implement a project on weapons disposal – something that Moldova has been demanding for many years from all available international rostrums. Except Chisinau has proved to be unable to formulate a concrete approach to implement its own demand in practice. Moreover, the new authorities have already managed to become infamous after Lieutenant Colonel Petrov was denied access to the place of service in the Russian peacekeeping battalion, which once again blocked the work of the Joint Control Commission and also created prerequisites for mutual distrust in military dimension. So, minor contradictions and worthless principles right away reflect the tendency that Chisinau will not be able to establish a dialogue with Moscow on any vital issue. The same conclusion can be applied to the situation in the negotiation process with Transdniestria, within the framework of which Moldova declares its interest to proceed to the discussion of political or status issues. However, in practice, the rebellious region is still used rather as a scarecrow for the international community and an excuse to bargain with Russia, which can hardly lead to the conflict settlement. In addition, the transport crisis in Transdniestria, for which Tiraspol primarily blames Chisinau, only worsened relations between the two banks. No wonder, the meeting in the 5+2 format is now being jeopardized, even despite Anne Linde's conciliatory visit. This means that the prospects for a political dialogue, already announced by the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, are also being compromised. There is no other format that would be acceptable to the international participants and would suggest the possibility of discussing a formula for a final settlement. Defying the logic of this process is not in Chisinau's interests. It is obvious that Moldova expects to improve its position by pressuring Tiraspol, but tends to leave out that Moscow is no longer containing the possible retaliatory steps of the left bank, since Igor Dodon has long since left the Moldovan presidency. During her Moscow voyage, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland certainly promises to defend Chisinau offended by the Russian bear, but the fact is that this will only reinforce the Moldovan government's erroneous opinion of its infallibility. Speculations in the Russian direction and anti-Russian affronts will probably continue, excluding the possibility for all the strategic tasks described above to be properly addressed.