February 25, 2010,  from ALDE
Ukraine must make up for lost time.

The European Parliament today adopted its opinion on Ukraine following recent Presidential elections.

ALDE Vice President, Adina Valean (PNL, Romania), was a member of the EU’s election monitoring mission. In adopting the resolution Valean highlighted the five years of lost time in addressing the constitutional deficits in Ukraine that have held back genuine reforms and undermined Ukraine’s reputation as a stable democracy:

“Ukraine has a great deal of potential but it has sacrificed a lot of good will in recent years by its failure to resolve the internal checks and balances in its own system of governance.”

“The paradox is that the leaders of the Orange revolution now find themselves in opposition whilst Victor Yanukovych has begun his mandate by making overtures to the European Union.”

“Unfortunately for the moment there exists a lack of clarity on both sides regarding the nature of the EU’s present and future relationship with Ukraine which is hindering better cooperation and understanding. Following the change in Government, this is the first honest debate we need to have with the new leadership in Kiev, and to see what common ground and common projects we can find that are in the interest of both parties.”

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It is quite clear that the Ukraine is torn by its internal division of a west that looks forward to the EU and an east that looks backwards to Russia. We said it before – nothing wrong with a split and allowing each part to attach itself to whomever they chose. But neigh – the Ukraine has had a government that was led by the east faction, and then by one that was led by the west faction that ended up splitting in two, now we have a return to power of the east faction that has learned something by being in opposition and now approaches the West before turning to Russia. We wish them luck but think that in face of the rising economies of Asia, it is for Russia itself to start changing and push for its own incorporation with Europe. Obviously, this will mean that Russia give up its nuclear high rolling, starts aligning with the EU on issues like Iran, allow for more rights to its own people. What Russia’s efforts will do will then cause further stalling in the creation of the European Federation, but at least give a good reason for the stalling of these advances within the EU that occur anyway. The Ukraine’s future is indeed the link to the entree of Russia to its own negotiations with the EU.

UKRAINE: Back Full Circle
Analysis by Zoltán Dujisin

BUDAPEST, Feb 8, 2010 (IPS) – The 2004 ‘Orange revolution’ saw a pro-Western leadership emerge victorious in a Presidential vote that opposed them to a pro-Russian candidate accused of vote rigging. After six years of political and economic chaos, the once villain Viktor Yanukovich has reclaimed the President’s post.

Ever since outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko and current Prime Minister Yuliya Timoshenko successfully led the 2004 popular uprising against allegations of electoral fraud that were internationally-backed, the high democratic expectations created gradually gave way to disappointment with the leaders’ inability to work together and to better the country’s depressing economic situation.

Following a campaign filled with mutual accusations of vote-rigging plans, the runoff of the presidential vote saw Yanukovich obtain 48.8 percent of the vote, closely followed by Timoshenko with 45.6 percent. The main outcome of the first round on Jan. 17 had been the sound defeat of President Viktor Yushchenko and his anti-Russian line.

In spite of popular fatigue with yearly elections, turnout bordered 70 percent. Representatives from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and the European Union have all considered the election free and fair, and have called on all sides to accept its results.

Joao Soares, head of the OSCE mission saidd “yesterday’s voting was a very impressive example of a democratic election,” whereas PACE mission head Matyas Eorsi said in a press conference that both candidates “should agree that the election was democratic; Ukraine deserves to be applauded.”

Yanukovich secured victory with a message of national unity, geopolitical moderation and economic and political stability to a country that has been bitterly divided and unstable ever since the Orange revolution.

“I think that we have made the first step towards uniting the country,” Yanukovich said. “I will spare no effort so that Ukrainians, no matter in what part of the country they live, feel comfort and peace in a stable country.”

For years accused of not being truly democratic, Yanukovych has said that, although he considered the period following the Orange revolution a “nightmare”, he is “not opposed to the slogans” of democracy and Europe promoted back then.

While it is clear that relations with Russia will continue on the path of normalisation favoured by both presidential contenders, the main question under a Yanukovich government is to what extent he will be accepted by Western countries as a reliable partner.

Yanukovich is not promising EU membership any time soon, but his support for step-by-step Europeanisation shows that the goal of entering the EU has become consensual among both the population and Ukraine’s political elites. Timoshenko has so far refused to concede defeat as many of her allies make allegations of massive fraud, but analysts believe she will eventually admit defeat.

“Timoshenko was defeated with dignity, the numbers show it was a minimal defeat, but if she decides to fight the results she will lose all international support,” Balazs Jarabik, Ukrainian expert at the Madrid-based Foundation for Foreign Relations and International Dialogue (FRIDE) told IPS.

The election winner Yanukovich recognised Timoshenko was “a strong rival or opponent to me” but called on her to lose “with dignity” and follow “the road all the way and admit defeat just like I did” in the past.

“She probably needs time to consult with her political allies and decide whether to stop being a serious obstacle and focus on keeping her premier position,” Jarabik told IPS.

With Prime Minister Timoshenko still holding a majority in the Ukrainian parliament, the prospect of a continued crisis in governance is more than likely.

If the two bitter rivals don’t reach a power-sharing agreement, the solution may lie in Yanukovich calling early parliamentary elections to consolidate his power with a new parliamentary majority that will prove more cooperative. Shortly after his victory, Yanukovich reminded the Prime Minister she “should start preparing for dismissal. She understands this very well. I think she will get a proposal to this effect.”

However, Yanukovich may not be able to accomplish her dismissal without help. Outgoing President Yushchenko has insisted he is not leaving politics, and Jarabik believes that in exchange for certain guarantees, he might use his deputies to support Yanukovich in dismissing Timoshenko from her post as Prime Minister.

“Yushchenko is willing to finish off Timoshenko in exchange for a high price, which could be asking for a prime ministerial position for an ally of his or even for himself, although that would be a bit extreme,” Jarabik told IPS.

The elections also signaled that Ukrainians are less preoccupied with national, symbolic and historical issues promoted by the current President and more concerned with Ukraine’s difficult socio-economic situation.

Yanukovich will inherit a country in an extremely dire economic condition. He will have to prove a more reliable partner to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) than his predecessors were in order to obtain much needed loans.

Ukraine’s economy continues to be on the verge of collapse, and budget revenues have diminished as a result of the global financial crisis, which may lead to a new round of privatisations.

Representatives of large businesses will continue to have a say in how Ukraine’s economic policy is run, and the business sectors behind Yanukovich are likely to demand policies that promote exports

We found an excellent blog that specializes in the understanding of “de Facto States” in general, and in the GUAM states and their separatist outside backed generally unrecognized states.

 http://blogs.euobserver.com/popescu/ is manned by Nicu Popescu who is a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in London, where he deals with the EU’s eastern neighborhood and Russia.

These days, with China ready to pour in $1 billion into Moldova, the East flank of the EU may become even more interesting, so good inside information will be important o Brussels and those that would like to see Europe hold together.

Russia claims a sphere of influence over its “near abroad” – a message that involves Belarus and Kazachstan with whom Russia has special trade agreements and the GUAM States – Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova that eye the European Union.

President Obama visited Moscow in order to “reset” US-Russia relations and coordinated a visit by Vice President Biden to Kiev and Tbilisi in order to reassure both Ukraine and Georgia that this reset will not sell out their interests.

For us what is of interest here is the talk in Kiev about the way the Ukraine is handling its energy sector, and we are in full agreement that the Ukrainians are totally forfeiting their independence of Russia, and by the way also endangering their own standing in their relations with Europe, all this by sticking with insane dependence on the pipelines of oil and gas – and mind you subsidizing this addiction on their own will.

The disparity between market prices and the cheap government-sold gas that arrives on the Russian pipeline, has in addition created a black market and vested interests that led to rampant corruption, economy distortions, and make it hard to solve the problem. These subsidies have strangled the economy by forcing Kiev to rely on below-market-price imports from Russia and submitted themselves to Russia’s direct influence on the Ukrainian economy, while at the same time making themselves into a handy tool for Russia disrupting supplies also  EU parts of Eastern and Central Europe.

Mr. Biden lectured publicly in Kiev: ” Your economic freedom depends more, on your energy freedom than on any other single factor,” he said. Energy efficiency will be a boon to your economy and an immeasurable benefit to your national security, he continued.

WOULD IT NOT BE NICE HAD Mr. BIDEN SAID THOSE THINGS ALSO ABOUT THE US IN WASHINGTON DC?

Further, Mr. Biden lectured that “Friendship requires honesty” and continued by saying that: “Mature democracies survive because they develop institutions such as free press, a truly independent court system, an effective legislature – all of which serve as a check on the corruption that fuels the cynicism and limits growth in any country, including yours.” How true! If above are looked at honestly, so will emerge the desire to decrease the dependence on outside supplies of energy by promotion of energy efficiency.

EU turns blind eye to corruption in eastern gas trade
Andrew Rettman, The EUobserver, June 6, 2006

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU is sending a “fact-finding” mission to Ukraine to see if its financial troubles could lead to a new gas crisis. But it is wary of tackling deeper problems of politics and corruption in the eastern gas trade, which also threaten EU energy security. The team of senior European Commission officials will travel to Kiev “in the coming days” and produce a report in time for a regular summit of EU leaders in Brussels on 18 June.


The move comes after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine is unable to pay for Russian gas and will probably start stealing EU-bound transit volumes, unless the EU loans it billions of euros.

Ukraine’s state-owned gas distributor, Naftogaz, has poor cashflow and often avoids public audits. But Ukraine sees the Putin statements as part of a propaganda war to damage its reputation and increase political support for new Russian pipelines bypassing the country. The dispute over Naftogaz’ reliability is just one aspect of a major shake-up in the Russia-Ukraine gas business.

Mr Putin and Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are at the same time trying to strong-arm Ukraine gas tycoon Dmitry Firtash, in developments which highlight the links between politics, gas and organised crime in the region.

A Putin-Tymoshenko deal in January ended the role of RosUkrEnergo (RUE), in which Mr Firtash controls a 50 percent stake, in selling Turkmenistan gas to Ukraine. Naftogaz in March also seized €3 billion of RUE gas stocks.

A little-known, Swiss-based firm called RosGas in May took ownership of Mr Firtash’s Hungarian gas supply company, Emfesz, in a transaction that Mr Firtash has called “illegal” and is fighting in the Swiss courts. It is unclear who owns RosGas. But Emfesz has said it belongs to the Putin-controlled Russian firm Gazprom.

The events have already affected European interests. RUE’s problems have seen it cut deliveries to EU states Poland and Hungary. The Emfesz takeover means 20 percent of Hungary’s gas supply is now in unknown hands.

The Putin-Tymoshenko attack on Mr Firtash could be designed to hurt Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, and reformist presidential candidate, Arsenyi Yatsenyuk. Mr Firtash is widely reported to have given financial support to Mr Yushchenko. The Firtash-linked TV station, Inter, has given Mr Yatsenyuk lots of good publicity.

The gas shake-up may have begun back in May 2008 with Moscow’s arrest on tax fraud charges of alleged mafia boss Semion Mogilevich.

Mr Mogilevich is connected to big names in the gas trade. In one example, his lawyer and ex-wife were involved in two Firtash companies. Mogilevich associates have also worked with Oleg Palchykov, a friend of Mr Firtash and a former co-director of RUE together with Konstantin Chuichenko, now a senior aide of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Analysts, such as Roman Kupchinsky from the US-based NGO Jamestown, believe that Mr Mogilevich helped Mr Firtash get started in the gas trade and used to give him protection. One way of looking at the Russia-Ukraine gas wars is not in terms of international commerce or geopolitics, but of one criminal clan muscling in on its rival.

“People can see that Firtash is a dead fish, so they are taking little bites out of him,” one Brussels-based diplomat said on the Emfesz takeover.

See no evil, hear no evil

Mr Firtash, who denies having any business relations with Mr Mogilevich or paying Mr Yushchenko, is trying to engage EU support.

One of Mr Firtash’s employees, Robert Shetler-Jones, last year donated around €57,000 to the British Conservative party.

Mr Firtash’s small, Brussels-based public affairs firm, Macmillan, compares him to “Mazeppa” – a seventeenth century Ukrainian patriot betrayed by a fellow nobleman and forced to flee the country, leading to decades of domination by Russia.

A middleman claiming to represent Mr Firtash has also approached the Brussels offices of two large international PR firms in recent weeks.

The European Commission has so far turned a deaf ear. In March, EU officials said they were “closely monitoring” Naftogaz’ seizure of RUE’s gas – “closely monitoring” is a typical commission “holding statement” when it does not have a real position.

The June fact-finding mission will not ask questions about Emfesz.

“From our point of view, the takeover of Emfesz has to be done in full respect of internal market rules. If there is any suspicion this is not the case, there should be a notification by one of the parties. At this stage we have not received any such notification,” a commission spokesman said.

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Concrete steps:

UK-based NGO Global Witness, which is no fan of Mr Firtash, in March wrote to commission president Jose Manuel Barroso urging him to root out corruption in the sector by forcing all energy companies active in the EU to disclose their ownership structure and any payments they make to governments.

A director from the commission’s energy department, Marjeta Jager, replied to say that the issue is being taken care of by the EU’s “political support” for the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI).

The EITI, a global project launched in 2002 by former UK leader Tony Blair, so far counts just one country, Azerbaijan, as fully compliant with its charter.

“The European Commission has failed to recognise the danger these companies [RUE, RosGas or other alleged Gazprom offshoots] present to the energy security of the EU and has not made any attempt to convince member states to investigate the role these companies play in the supply chain,” Jamestown’s Mr Kupchinsky s

Never waste a good crisis, Clinton says on climate.

By Pete Harrison, Reuters, Friday March 6, 2009.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience Friday “never waste a good crisis,” and highlighted the opportunity of rebuilding economies in a greener, less energy-intensive way.

Highlighting Europe’s unease the day after Russia warned that gas flows via Ukraine might be halted, she also condemned the use of energy as a political lever.

Clinton told young Europeans at the European Parliament that global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening. “Never waste a good crisis … Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security,” she said.

Europe sees the United States as a crucial ally in global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, after President Barack Obama signaled a new urgency in tackling climate change, in stark contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush.

Europe has already laid out plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions to about a fifth below 1990 levels in the next decade, while Obama has proposed a major shift toward renewable energy and a cap and trade system for CO2 emissions.

But with many countries in the grip of a punishing recession, some question whether businesses can muster the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to cut carbon emissions.

“Certainly the United States has been negligent in living up to its responsibilities,” said Clinton, on her first visit to Europe as secretary of state.

“This is a propitious time … we can actually begin to demonstrate our willingness to confront this.”

Clinton said she was encouraged by China’s stance on climate change during a visit there last month.

“It is very important that at the beginning of this effort, China has expressed a willingness to participate,” she told reporters. “They realize they’ve just surpassed the unfortunate record that we just held of being the largest carbon emitter.”

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POLITICAL LEVER

Many politicians argue that the economic crisis, energy security issues and climate change can all be dealt with in a “New Green Deal,” replacing high-carbon infrastructure with green alternatives and simultaneously creating millions of jobs.

“There is no doubt in my mind the energy security and climate change crises, which I view as being together, not separate, must be dealt with,” Clinton added.

She attacked the use of energy as a political weapon, echoing Europe’s worries after repeated spats between Russia and gas transit country Ukraine hit EU supplies in recent years.

“We are … troubled by using energy as a tool of intimidation,” she said. “We think that’s not in the interest of creating a better and better functioning energy system.”

Clinton is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for dinner in Geneva in the hope of improving relations after a post-Cold War low during Bush’s presidency.

The latest cuts to Russian gas exports in January forced the closure of factories, hospitals and schools in Eastern Europe in mid-winter.

A new row between Ukraine and Russia appeared to have been averted Thursday after state-owned Gazprom said Ukraine settled payments at the heart of the disagreement.

But European leaders were rattled by the warning of cuts to supply by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

From:      thenewyorksynagogue at thenewyorksynagog…
Subject: Join Us Tomorrow for Sholem Aleichem’s 150th Birthday Celebration
Date: March 6, 2009

The Year Of Sholom Aleichem – His 150th Birthday.
March 4, 2009, The Jewish Week,
by Jonathan Mark, Associate Editor

In a Bronx winter, Sholom Aleichem turned 57 on March 2, 1916, eroded by tuberculosis, his prostate, diabetes and a broken heart – his son Misha had recently died in Europe after being denied entry at Ellis Island. His daughter was in Odessa. His “republic,” as he once laughingly called his large family, was scattered around this world and the Other World, let alone divided by the Great War’s trenches.

He could hear the elevated subway screech and rumble on Westchester Avenue as it entered and left the Intervale Avenue station, down the block from his Kelly Street walkup. Not long before, while on a speaking tour in Russia, he collapsed in Baranovich, was bedridden for weeks and his “beloved readers” spread straw on the street beneath his window so his sleep wouldn’t be disturbed by the clip-clop of horses over the cobblestones. There wasn’t enough straw in the Bronx to soften his landing. Life was grim and closing in. He was nearly broke, losing his wife’s inheritance in the Kiev stock market, losing money from publishers and theatrical producers who got the better of him, losing touch with so many of his readers behind the war’s eastern front.

He had two months to live. He wrote his own epitaph: “Here lies a plain man who wrote in plain Yiddish … And while the whole world was merry, and saw in him but gladness, poor man, he suffered on the quiet. God knows, but no one else did.”

The New York Times reported that more than 100,000 of his readers lined the streets for his funeral with “a crush that threatened to develop into a stampede,” to say goodbye. They loved him, and they knew he loved them back.

If his last days were sad, his afterlife has been splendid. His name is associated with a twinkle; “Fiddler On The Roof” cemented his fame, bringing new readers to new translations. This month, his 150th birthday, there were celebrations in Tel Aviv. Limmud FSU launched “The Year of Sholom Aleichem,” with young Kiev activists visiting his Pereyaslav birthplace. Ukraine opened a Sholom Aleichem museum and issued a stamp, a coin and a cultural prize in his name.

A Ukrainian television crew flew to New York to cover events here: A Sholom Aleichem Shabbat (March 7) at the New York Synagogue on East 58th Street, featuring Sholom Aleichem’s granddaughter Bel Kaufman(a writer herself, most famously for “Up The Down Staircase,”) and a celebration at the Players Club, later that evening, with Kaufman, Theodore Bikel, “Fiddler” composer Sheldon Harnick and author Pete Hamill. Penguin Classics released a new translation of the Tevye and Motl stories, and Viking released a new edition of “Wandering Stars,” his novel about a Yiddish theater troupe, with a foreword by Tony Kushner, author of “Angels in America.”

But let’s return to an Odessa long ago, when little Bel Kaufman would get letters with a Bronx postmark: “Dear Belichka, I am writing you to ask you to hurry and grow up so you can learn to write, and write me letters. In order to grow up it is necessary to drink milk, have your soup and vegetables, and fewer candies. Regards to your dolls. Your papa, Sholom Aleichem, who loves you very much.”

Then came a three-word cable in English. Chaim Nachman Bialik, Kaufman’s neighbor in Odessa, came over to translate: “Papa very sick.”

“I’m almost 98,” says Kaufman today, “the only descendant of Sholom Aleichem who knew him, because I’m so old.”

She was separated from him, in his final years, and didn’t see her grandmother Hodel (Olga), for several years more because of war and revolution. She last saw her Papa when she was 3, vacationing with her cousin Tamar in Bavaria.

“He had a little goatee,” Bel recalls, “and velvet vests. He had blonde hair, longish in the style of the time. And he had pince-nez glasses at the end of a black ribbon. He was very happy, so youthful and full of fun.

“He adored us.” As they walked he’d say, “The harder you hold my hand, the better I write!” Bel squeezed tighter. “Do you see that mountain? I just gave it to Tamarichka. Do you see this lake? I’m making a present of it to Belichka.”

They walked through a zoo, stopping in front of a monkey on a branch. “Papa takes a piece of paper, folds it into a cone, fills it with water from a nearby fountain, and lifts it up so the monkey can drink. The monkey refuses. Papa bends down to me, and I can still hear his voice: ‘Belichka, it’s a spoiled monkey.’ Papa refills the paper cone and drank and drank, very thirstily. Only later did I realize he was suffering from diabetes. But even about that he’d joke, ‘At least I know I won’t die of hunger. I’ll die of thirst.”

“The German landlady made us lovely dinners,” remembers Bel. Then war was declared. “No more lovely dinners. We had to escape,” she to Odessa, he to New York.

When “Fiddler” opened in 1964, The New York Times asked Isaac Bashevis Singer to explain Sholom Aleichem to a burgeoning audience. Singer, who could be acidic about other writers, responded with reverence: “Can a folk writer be a genius, and can a genius think and feel just like an average man? If such a phenomenon is possible, Sholom Aleichem is its closest approximation.”

He loved everyone and everything Jewish. Even when he became less religiously observant as he grew older, he never stopped writing stories about the exhilaration of the holidays and their seasons.

He was fiercely against intermarriage, saying that his children could have “whatever religious convictions they will, but I beg of them to guard their Jewish descent.” If they didn’t, he would disown. He had Tevye say of his intermarried child, Chava, “She is no longer my daughter. She died long ago.”

And yet, in a story written less than two years before he died, Sholom Aleichem had Tevya and Chava reconcile. He had Tevye address Sholom Aleichem himself: “Please don’t think badly of me that tears come to my eyes when I remember this … After all, she was still my child … How can a person be so harsh when God says of Himself that is an all-forgiving God? … What do you say, Sholom Aleichem? You’re a Jew who writes books and gives advice to everybody. Tell me, what should Tevye have done?

“Goodbye,” says Tevye to Sholom Aleichem, “be well, and forgive me for filling your head with so many words. It will give you something to write about.”

Russia in a New Gas War with Ukraine.

Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW, Mar 5 (IPS) - The Ukraine-Russia gas dispute has boosted plans for construction of the South Stream and North Stream gas pipelines that would eventually divert Russian gas supplies through the Black Sea and the Baltic seabed respectively to European consumers. But the plans have led to a new spat between Russia and Ukraine. The new plans would mean that Russia would no longer send its gas supplies through Ukraine, which locked horns with Russia over payment of outstanding gas debts last December. The dispute led to gas supply disruptions to European consumers in the dead of winter.

“Going beyond the controversy, diversification of gas supplies is an important factor in energy security,” Denis Daniilidis, spokesperson for the Moscow office of the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, told IPS. On an official visit to Spain early this month, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller promised development of the Arctic gas field, which has estimated reserves of 3.8 trillion cubic metres. This would supply the North Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, currently being built under the Baltic Sea.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and many other European Union members have also reiterated their interest in construction of the South Stream gas pipeline, intended to send Russian gas to Europe across the Black Sea bed. The South Stream gas pipeline, linking the Russian Black Sea port Novorossiysk to Bulgaria’s Varna, is due to be commissioned in 2013.

Belarusian Prime Minister Sergey Sidorsky has proposed another pipeline to guarantee stable supply of Russian gas to Europe, and has sought involvement of Poland and Germany in the project. The proposed pipeline would bring gas from the Yamal Peninsula in north-western Siberia.

But some Ukrainian experts are cautioning against such expansion. Volodymyr Vakhitov, Ukrainian expert on energy economics, told IPS that it is necessary to guarantee not just the route but the supplier.

Turkey wants clear European position on Nabucco.

By Elitsa Vucheva, EUobserver, March 5, 2009
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Turkey on Wednesday (4 March) said its support for EU-backed Nabucco pipeline was unconditional, despite earlier statements linking the project’s progress with its EU membership talks, and said it was divisions within the 27 EU states that are slowing the project’s progress.

Turkey has clearly been backing Nabucco from the very beginning, Hilmi Guler, Turkish Minister for Energy and Natural Resources, said at a conference organised by the Brussels-based European Policy Centre think-tank and Turkish Business Organisation TUSKON.

“We are the initiator of this project, not only the partner. We initiated it because we need it, also because we consider that the European Union needed it,” Mr Guler said.

“Also we haven’t changed our position from the beginning… But sometimes the EU acts as a Union, sometimes as a country, sometimes as a company. We want their position to be clarified… They always change their position,” he added.

Nabucco is to be some 2,000km long and its construction is supposed to start in 2011, with first gas shipments due in 2014. The gas would be shipped from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

However, it is not clear yet how the project, estimated to cost some €8 billion, would be financed. There are also concerns about whether there is enough gas for it.

Consequently, some EU governments, including Germany and Italy, which have long-term gas contracts with Russia’s Gazprom, have been sceptical about Nabucco.

On Sunday, German chancellor Angela Merkel said the new pipeline should not be subsidised with European money.

“There is no need for financial support for Nabucco as there is no shortage of private investors… The problem with Nabucco is where the gas will come from, not where the investment will come from,” Ms Merkel said after meeting other EU leaders in Brussels.

Meanwhile, Germany is strongly backing the planned Nabucco rival Nord Stream pipeline coming from Russia, while gas companies in Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria – all part of the Nabucco consortium – have signed on another Nabucco rival, South Stream, which would bring gas to Italy also from Russia.

Turkey’s energy minister urged EU countries to make up their minds if they want Nabucco realised on time.

“We are observing our partners, because sometimes they are flirting [with] other source countries. Some of them are flirting with Russia, some of them are flirting with Iran,” Mr Guler said.

“First of all, everyone should consider their position and responsibility if they want to realise this project [within the proposed timetable],” he added.

Not a political project

The energy minister also stressed that Turkey’s support for Nabucco was unconditional.

In January, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had indicated that Ankara may rethink its support for Nabucco if there is no progress on the energy chapter of its EU accession talks, which is still blocked at the moment, notably due to Cypriot opposition.

“If we are faced with a situation where the energy chapter is blocked, we would of course review our position [on Nabucco],” Mr Erdogan had said at the time.

But although Turkey does want to enter the European Union, “we are not using Nabucco as an instrument” to achieve that goal, said Mr Guler.

“It is a commercial project, it’s not a political project,” he added, rejecting accusations that Ankara is “hindering” Nabucco, and saying Turkey wants it realised as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn who also took part in the discussion, insisted on the need for the EU to diversify its energy sources, and cited nuclear power as one suitable means to do so.

The UN Holocaust event announced for Tuesday January 27, 2009 (The Mandated Day to Remember the Holocaust) is balanced out with an announcement for the Arab Edition on a book on The Question of Palestine. We find this appalling.

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From: UN DPI UPDATES (16 – 31 January 2009)

MEETINGS, CONFERENCES AND SPECIAL EVENTS:

Tuesday 27 January 2009

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Memorial ceremony at the UN General Assembly Hall :   “An Authentic Basis for Hope: Holocaust Remembrance and Education”, with keynote speaker Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Chairman of Yad Vashem Council.   USG Kiyo Akasaka will open the event, which will include a message from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.   Statements will be made by H.E. Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd session of the General Assembly, and H.E. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations. Ruth Glasberg Gold, a survivor of the Transnistria camps, and WWII veteran Leonid Rozenberg will share their personal stories. Cantor Ya’akov Motzen will recite “El Ma’le Rachamim” and “Ani Ma’amin”. The ceremony will also include musical performances by Elisha Abas (piano) and Yoon Kwon (violin). Please register at  holocaustremembrance at un.org or by fax 212-963-0536.    
Wednesday 28 January

1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.   Holocaust Survivors’ Memoirs Project Book Signing at the UN Bookshop. Mrs. Frances Irwin will present and sign copies of her memoir included in the volume titled “Stolen Youth: Five Women’s Survival in the Holocaust”.   Every January in observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, volumes from the Holocaust Survivors’ Memoirs Project are on display in the Public Lobby and for sale in the Book Shop.   Mrs. Jeannie Rosensaft, one of the editors of the memoirs, will discuss the Project, which is an initiative of Nobel Prize laureate and United Nations Messenger of Peace Elie Wiesel, and Menachem Rosensaft, Chairman of the Project’s Editorial Board.

For further information, please contact  holocaustremembrance at un.org

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Thursday 29 January

9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.: DPI-NGO briefing on the experience of Jews in Greece during the Holocaust, in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium.   Non-UN grounds pass holders please register at  HU2 at un.org .

6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.:   Film screening, “Forgiving Dr. Mengele”, with statement by Ms. Eva Kor, who makes an inspirational visit to Germany, Israel and Auschwitz to come to terms with her experience.     Venue: Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium.   Please register at  holocaustremembrance at un.org or by fax 212-963-0536.

Contact:  mann at The Question of Palestine and the United Nations (Arabic edition):   The Arabic edition of The Question of Palestine and the United Nations will be published by the end of January.        
Contact:  ueki at un.org

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From: UN DAILY NEWS , UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
16 January, 2009 =========================================================================

BAN URGES UNILATERAL ISRAELI CEASEFIRE IN GAZA; MEETS WITH PALESTINIAN LEADERS

On the third day of his intensive diplomatic mission to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon conferred today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah, and called on Israel to unilaterally cease hostilities.

“We have no time to lose,” he told reporters after his meetings in the West Bank on the 21st day of the offensive Israel launched with the stated aim of halting Hamas rocket attacks against it from Gaza. “A unilateral declaration of a ceasefire would be necessary at this time.” He said he would exert his utmost efforts to realize that goal and underscored his full support for President Abbas’s leadership.

“There is increasing hope that flows from the intensive political discussions that are going on, not least by our Secretary-General, which is much appreciated here on the ground,” a top UN official in Gaza reported, speaking to journalists in New York by video link from ground zero from where he has been giving daily briefings on the death and destruction.

“Let’s keep the urgency and momentum moving, because if there were a briefing tomorrow I am sorry to say there are people alive including children right now who will be dead, so that is where the imperative lies, we have to get the ceasefire because every hour that passes without a ceasefire is costing the lives of innocent civilians here,” Gaza Director of Operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) John Ging said.

As of noon New York time the death toll stood at 1,115 dead, including 370 children, with 5,150 wounded, 1,745 of them children, according to Gazan health ministry figures, which UN officials call credible. Mr. Ging said 4,000 more people had fled their homes in the last 24 hours to seek shelter in UN schools, bringing the total to 49,000. Hundreds of thousands of others are estimated to have sought refuge with relatives and friends in less conflict-hit areas of Gaza.

After meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem last night, Mr. Ban told reporters the Israeli Government would make an important decision on a ceasefire and he hoped it would be the right one, with Israel showing the world that it is a responsible member of the UN, abiding by Security Council resolutions. Last week the Council called for an immediate ceasefire.

Following his stop in Ramallah, Mr. Ban travelled to Ankara to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, stressing his determination to work with the Turkish Government to help find solutions to the terrible crisis in Gaza. At the weekend he will go to Lebanon and Syria for talks with Government officials in both countries about the violence in Gaza and southern Israel, before attending the Arab Economic Summit in Kuwait on Monday.

Mr. Ging said UNRWA, which aids 750,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza, about half the population, is establishing alternative warehouses and is “up and running again” after Israeli shells destroyed the warehouse in its main compound yesterday, sending hundreds of tons of food and medicine up in flames. The fire continued to burn today. “Massive devastation and destruction” was reported in the area of the compound, he added.

“I myself would never have predicted what has happened in full view of the whole world over these past 21 days and nights, but it has happened and continues right now, but I am hopeful, not least because of the efforts of our Secretary-General, which is there for all to see, and I wish others would join him in the degree of commitment and pro-activity that he is bringing to bear.”

DPI UPDATES (16 – 31 January 2009)

• Monday 26 January 2009

• Tuesday 27 January 2009

• Wednesday 28 January

• Thursday 29 January

Russia restores gas flows to Europe.

The International Herald Tribune is among the papers to report that Russia began limited exports of gas to Europe this morning, a day after an agreement between Russia and Ukraine was finally reached.

The IHT quotes Interfax news agency as saying that Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz had received a request from Gazprom to ship 76m cubic metres of gas across the country, which the paper says is well below the daily norm of around 300m.

A Gazprom spokesman in Moscow said that the exact shipment figures would be available later on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Russia continues to blame Ukraine for the crisis, reports the Guardian, insisting that Kiev owes money to Gazprom for 2008 supplies, and saying it will put up the prices for 2009.

The Kyiv Post reports a statement by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller, who said that if gas bound for transit through Ukrainian pipelines is “illegally siphoned”, the company will decrease supplies by that amount each day.

A related story in the Irish Times says that the gas crisis has renewed calls for a permanent president of the European council, a big personality who can hold sway with major energy companies and other global powers.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair was once again touted for the job in yesterday’s Financial Times, which quoted an EU diplomat as saying, “Sarkozy made us think: when the going gets rough, you’ve got to have the big person”.

————-

Blair reappears on shortlist to head EU.
By Tony Barber in Brussels
Published: January 11 2009 , The Financial Times

Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, is re-emerging as a possible choice to be the European Union’s first full-time president after four momentous crises reinforced the argument for having a high-profile international personality in the job.

According to EU officials and diplomats, the impressive performance of Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, during his six-month spell in charge of the EU last year has strengthened the hand of those who say a big name should guide the 27-nation bloc.

In one sense, the discussions are premature. The full-time president will take office next year only if the EU’s Lisbon institutional reform treaty, which creates the position, is ratified by all member-states – notably, Ireland, which is expected to hold a second referendum on the treaty between September and December.

But the sheer scale of the challenges facing the EU – from last August’s Russia-Georgia war and the global financial meltdown to the Gaza conflict and the shutdown of Russian gas deliveries to Europe – is redefining the debate.

Whereas last year Germany and other countries looked favourably on candidates such as Jean-Claude Juncker, the long-serving prime minister of Luxembourg, more policymakers now feel the EU presidency demands an occupant from a much bigger member-state.

“Sarkozy concentrated minds,” said an EU diplomat. “He made a lot of us think, ‘When the going gets rough, you’ve just got to have a big person in this job.’”

At present the EU presidency – held since January 1 by the Czech Republic – rotates every six months.

However, the balance of EU opinion is now in favour of not letting the vital task of representing the EU to big powers such as the US, China and Russia pass from one capital to another every six months.

Mr Blair’s name has often cropped up in connection with the job, but last year several factors worked against him, such as his close partnership with George W. Bush, the outgoing US president, and his perceived talent for publicly supporting the EU without being bold enough to commit the UK to closer involvement, for example, by adopting the euro.

EU diplomats said these reservations still applied but had diminished over time and with the recognition that Mr Blair was one of Europe’s few genuine stars on the world stage.

In what looked like a “rehabilitation” of Mr Blair’s standing in the Franco-German core of the EU, the former premier shared the spotlight last Thursday with Mr Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, at a Paris conference on the future of capitalism.

———–

Mr Blair’s chances of getting the job – should it ever be created – may improve as a result of an impending re-distribution of powerful jobs among European leaders.

Under one scenario, José Manuel Barroso of Portugal would keep his job as European Commission president, and the post of EU foreign policy chief would go to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands, currently Nato’s secretary-general.

The Nato job would go to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister, and the European parliament presidency would be shared between Martin Schulz of Germany and Jerzy Buzek of Poland.

With France’s Jean-Claude Trichet as European Central Bank president and Dominique Strauss-Kahn as International Monetary Fund managing director, the case for having a Briton as EU president would on paper be strong.

Mr Blair’s spokesman said on Sunday: “The job [as EU president] doesn’t even exist so the question doesn’t arise. He’s fully focused on his work in the Middle East.”

The problem is that the West is freezing while the Ukraine refuses to stand up to its responsibilities to both ends of those pipes. Would it not be easier to pass on to them the responsibility of managing the” in between business” rather then being faced with its syphoning of the gas in transit?

Years ago we said, in an article in the Wall Street Journal, that the Soviet Union would never harm its interest by blowing up its exports of gas to the west, while they had little to lose by blowing up the exports of oil from the Middle East to the West.   We contended that it was safer for Europe to rely on Soviet gas then on Middle East oil – and we were proved right. But now, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the situation has changed. The squabbles between The Ukraine and Russia have left the EU in the cold. The Russians are probably right that The Ukraine is syphoning off from the gas intended for sale to the west, on the other hand, while paying transit fees, the Russians do not want to sell to the Ukraine gas at a discount. So what is the best solution short of submitting he West to a “Cold War?”

Sell the gas to the Ukraine at ports of entree – Russia knows then what is going through – and let them handle it from there on and do their own contracts or use it all up if they prefer. This seems to be the only solution between two partners that indeed do not trust each other. The Ukraine will then shape up very fast having been given a grown up responsibility in its position as middle man between Russia and the West.

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www.TheParliament.com Press Review
Date: January 12, 2009

EU, Russia say Ukraine ready to give in on gas deal.

Deutsche Welle reports that Ukraine is ready to remove a controversial clause it had inserted into an agreement to end the gas standoff with Russia.

The clause, which declared that Ukraine’s 2008 debts to Russian energy giant Gazprom were paid in full, will be removed according to reports from the European commission and news agency Interfax.

Russian president Dmitri Medvedev had cancelled a signing of the agreement after the Ukrainian move, and prime minister Vladimir Putin had complained to European commission president over it.

Russia’s Gazprom cut off supplies of gas to Europe through Ukraine last week because it says Ukrainian debts are in the region of 2bn US dollars.

The New York Times says that the row was caused by a handwritten note Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko inserted beside her signature on the EU-brokered document, which had already been signed by Russia.

She attached a declaration, seen by the New York Times, saying that Ukraine was not guilty of stealing gas from export pipelines, which was Russia’s chief reason for shutting off supplies to Europe.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times says that the deal is no closer to securing uninterrupted supplies of gas for Europe, as the escalation of the row has hardened Russia’s determination to squeeze more money out of Ukraine.

The paper says that Ukraine is still intent on charging higher gas transit fees as Gazprom is talking about doubling its charges to 450 US dollars per 1,000 cubic metres.

We post the following – an eight months old article – because of the news that Russia’s Lukhoil is intent on buying 30% of the Spain’s Repsol – this is a clear evidence that the Gideon Rachman Article still holds true.

Rachman was talking about the Natural Gas Pipelines from Russia to West and Central Europe via The Ukraine and Belarus, with potential of investment in pipelines that could bypass these countries – but he believes that the overall interest of Russian business will not make it necessary to look for these alternatives – in effect one could rather foresee that Russia would be just as reliable in its supplies as the Soviet Union was before, this because of the entanglements of international investments and business in general.

Who’s Next? Russia’s Cat and Mouse Game with Moldova.
William H. Hill, October 24, 2008, on Open Democracy.
 http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/rus…

Two years ago Moldova’s president President Vladimir Voronin began a process of repairing his relations with Russia and seeking Moscow’s cooperation in negotiating a settlement with breakaway republic of Transnistria. Moldova has not yet received its payoff from improved relations with Russia and its reintegration with Transnistria has remained as uncertain as before.

Russia’s crushing use of force against Georgia last August gave rise to frenzied speculation that Moscow would mount similar military threats to other neighboring states and former Soviet republics.   However, the next major Russian initiative in the “post-Soviet space” has come in a different fashion in the miniscule Republic of Moldova.   In contrast to the Georgian case, the Russian scenario in Moldova casts President Dmitri Medvedev in the role of sage peacemaker in an internal territorial dispute left over from the days of the Soviet collapse.

A small nation of some four million, predominantly Romanian-speaking people wedged between Ukraine and Romania, Moldova sought and won its independence as the USSR disintegrated in the late 1980s.   A group of primarily Slavic Soviet political figures and enterprise managers on the east, or left bank of the Nistru (Dniestr) River in the Soviet Republic of Moldavia resisted Moldovan attempts to leave the USSR and proclaimed their small sliver of land a separate, Transnistrian Moldovan Republic.   In 1992 Moldova and Transnistria fought a brief, bitter war which the separatists won, with the assistance of a contingent of locally-based Russian troops left over from the Soviet Red Army.

During the conflict in 1992 Moldova appealed for assistance to the UN, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the OSCE), and various western nations.   Only Moscow heeded Chisinau’s call for mediation and brokered a cease fire that left Russian troops in place as peacekeepers.   Negotiations for a political settlement have dragged on since that time between Chisinau and Tiraspol (the separatist “capital”), with Russia, and then the OSCE and Ukraine serving as mediators.   In 2005 the U.S. and European Union formally joined the negotiations as observers.

With a population roughly the size of Luxembourg, Transnistria’s prospects as an independent state were always sketchy.   The region supported itself partially through a heavy industrial base left over from Soviet times that enjoyed surprising success in penetrating the EU and North American markets.   The left bank enclave received subsidies from Moscow, especially in the form of low-cost natural gas, running at least $30 million per year.   Finally, the region augmented its income and solidified its political position mostly by serving as a haven for smuggling and tax evasion, not only for its own residents, but also politicians and businessmen from all of the neighboring states.   “A giant off-shore” is how one Moldovan political figure characterized the region to me.

No state, including Russia, has recognized Transnistria’s independence.   Moscow’s stated policy has always been that Transnistria is a part of Moldova, and the two sides should agree voluntarily on peaceful unification of the country, with a special status for the left bank.   However, backed by influential circles in Moscow, Transnistrian leaders have been reluctant to give up their lucrative status quo for an uncertain future.   Moldova, by most statistical measurements the poorest country in Europe, has few material incentives to win over its breakaway region.   Instead Chisinau has generally pinned its hopes on intervention by a large outside power – Russia, the U.S. or the EU – to coerce Tiraspol into the Republic of Moldova.

In 2003 Moldova and Transnistria almost reached a political settlement of their conflict.   The proposed agreement, the so-called “Kozak Memorandum,” brokered by Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Dmitri Kozak, fell apart at the last minute, partially because of western objections to a provision calling for a long-term Russian troop presence.   With Kozak as point man in 2003, Moscow bypassed the existing negotiating mechanism with its broader international participation.   Swayed by promises that Moscow would overcome Transnistrian resistance and unite his country, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin went along with the gambit until the last minute.   With angry crowds gathering outside the Presidential Building and frantic calls from western leaders, only at the last moment did Voronin call Russian President Putin and tell him not to come to Chisinau to sign the Memorandum.   Putin has reportedly nursed a grudge ever since.

Five years later events are in the works that may repeat this scenario.   The leader of one of the last post-Soviet communist parties in power in the former USSR, Voronin turned toward the West after 2003 and declared a policy of European integration.   Russia retaliated by banning imports of Moldovan meat, fruit, and wine, placing grave economic pressure on the small country.   Moscow also frustrated Moldovan attempts to use Ukrainian, EU, and U.S. support to press Transnistria into a political settlement.

In late 2006, while keeping western negotiators informed of his course of action, President Voronin began a process of repairing his relations with Russia and seeking Moscow’s cooperation in negotiating a settlement with Transnistria.   There have been some modest gains from this process, but overall the results are disappointing for Chisinau.

As events in Kosovo and Georgia developed in 2008, Moldova sought to portray itself as more moderate and reasonable than Tbilisi.   Moldova did not recognize Kosovo, declared itself a neutral country (already guaranteed in the 1994 Moldovan constitution), and ostentatiously announced that it had no need to seek NATO membership.   Chisinau was rewarded in March, when after theatrical hearings the Russian Parliament advocated recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but recommended only a special status for Transnistria within Moldova.   On August 25, one day before he announced Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russian President Medvedev met with Voronin in Sochi and reaffirmed Russia’s dedication to seeking a peaceful resolution of the Transnistrian conflict.

The formal Transnistrian political settlement negotiation process goes on, although there has not been an official round of negotiations since February 28, 2006, when Moldovan negotiators walked out in protest of Transnistrian provocations.   The mediators and observers in the so called “5+2″ process – Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, the EU, and the US – continue to call regularly for resumption of the negotiations.   The latest meeting of mediators and observers took place September 8 at OSCE Headquarters in Vienna, ending with a hopeful statement.   However, a full-scale negotiating round scheduled for October 7-8 in Vienna failed to materialize.   The ostensible reason was the Transnistria’s refusal to attend, widely seen as a tactic to allow more time for Moscow’s bilateral efforts with Chisinau to bear fruit.

Meanwhile Moscow has intensified contacts with Voronin and Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov.   Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov brokered a one on one meeting between Voronin and Smirnov in April; the two had not met in person since August 2001.   Shortly after his Sochi conversation with Voronin, Medvedev also received Smirnov.   The blustery Transnistrian leader, whose line is usually that he has nothing to discuss with Voronin except bilateral relations between their two independent states, announced meekly after his talk with Medvedev that the two sides needed to meet to bring their positions closer together.

The current expectation in Moldova and Russia is that Voronin and Smirnov will get together once more, to be followed by a meeting of both of them with Medvedev.   Lavrov has floated a trial balloon in the Russian press that revival of the Kozak Memorandum might be a good basis for reaching a solution in Moldova.

However, Transnistrian leaders continue to do their utmost to deflect any settlement process and to defend their comfortable status quo.   Smirnov recently annoyed his Moldovan interlocutors and Russian patrons, ducking a widely anticipated late September meeting with Voronin in order to celebrate Abkhaz “independence” on the beaches near Sukhumi.   Moldovan negotiators, on the other hand, are increasingly frustrated by Moscow’s failure to react to a comprehensive Moldovan package proposal that has been on the table for almost two years.   Venting his irritation during a late September visit to Moldova’s largest landfill, President Voronin announced that this – a garbage dump – was the proper place for the separatist regime.

The Moldovan President is under great pressure to reach agreement now to unite his country, or give up on what has been the highest priority of his two terms in office.   National elections must be held in Moldova no later than spring 2009, when Voronin’s second and final term as president runs out.   Constitutional experts claim the sitting Moldovan Parliament must approve any settlement at least six months before the end of its term, so there are only a few weeks left before a Transnistrian settlement becomes impossible for the remainder of this legislative term.   For Voronin, who was born and raised on the left bank during Soviet times, and who desperately wishes to see his country united, it is frustrating in the extreme to watch the clock run out on his opportunity to reach a settlement.

Moscow will not go after Moldova with military means.   The small contingent of Russian troops now stationed in the Transnistrian region (around 1400) is no match in military terms for either the Moldovan or the Transnistrian armed forces.   Russian military forces in Moldova serve rather as a political symbol, tripwire, and deterrent to small-scale military adventures.   Any Russian reinforcements need to come through or over Ukraine, not a realistic possibility in current political circumstances.   Including their armies, special forces, militia, interior ministry and security troops, both Chisinau and Tiraspol can muster between 12000 to 18000 men under arms.   This is enough to deter each other (and the Russians), but probably not enough to take and hold territory.   In addition – as opposed to Georgia – no one on either side in Moldova wants to fight.   The quarrel along the Nistru is between political and economic elites, and not hostile communities, ethnic, or national groups.

Russia has already established a public posture on Moldova that implies clearly: “Here is how we deal with friendly countries that don’t join NATO and don’t use violence to settle separatist conflicts.”   Moldova has not yet received its payoff from improved relations, and Moscow appears to be stringing Chisinau along with the hope of a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.   The crucial time will come, much as it did in 2003, if and when a solution presented to Chisinau in its separate 2008 track with Moscow turns out to have a crucial catch in it, such as a bilateral agreement with significant obligations, perhaps a long-term troop presence.

In 2003 western negotiators (I was one of them) repeatedly argued with our Russian counterparts that negotiating a political settlement in Moldova was not and should not be a zero sum game.   We tried to convince Moscow that there were win-win solutions that protected and furthered the fundamental security interests of all parties in the region, indeed in the Euro-Atlantic area.   Obviously we did not succeed; Russia apparently considered primacy in the region more important than cooperation.   In 2008, with the strategic security environment much worse, Russia seems to favor the same myopic, unilateralist path.

With respect to Moldova in 2008, the absence of a solution to the Transnistrian question will be better than a bad solution that cripples the country’s chances for reform and integration into Europe as a whole.   For any settlement to succeed, Russia must be a part – but so must the rest of Europe and the North Atlantic community, i.e. the EU and US.   Commenting on US actions elsewhere in the world, the Russians are fond of proclaiming that unilateral solutions do not work.   The conflict areas like Moldova on the periphery of the former USSR are places where they ought to listen to their own advice.
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The author, currently Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College in Washington DC, served two terms between 1999 and 2006 as Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova.   The views expressed are entirely his own.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND MOVES TO BOOST UKRAINE, HUNGARY AND ICELAND.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced forthcoming loans for Hungary and Ukraine – the latter potentially receiving up to $16.5 billion – to strengthen both countries’ financial systems and ensure fiscal sustainability.

“An IMF staff mission and the Ukraine authorities have today reached agreement, subject to approval by IMF Management and the Executive Board,” said IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn yesterday.

“Ukraine has developed a comprehensive policy package designed to help the country meet the balance of payments needs created by the collapse of steel prices, and the global financial turmoil and related difficulties in Ukraine’s financial system.”

Issued under a 24-month standby arrangement, the loan will address financial sector liquidity and solvency problems.

In the case of Hungary, IMF has been working with both the country’s authorities and the European Union (EU) to outline a framework of policies that will shore up the Hungarian financial sector and ensure economic growth potential.

“A substantial financing package in support of these strong policies will be announced when the program is finalized in the next few days…the policies Hungary envisages justify an exceptional level of access to Fund resources,” said Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

The announcement follows an agreement last Friday to loan Iceland more than $2 billion over two years in support of an economic programme to help restore confidence in the Nordic country’s banking system and stabilize its currency.

Last Friday Mr. Strauss-Kahn also joined Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the meeting of the Chief Executives Board (CEB) – which brings together the heads of various UN agencies and entities, the World Bank and the IMF – where leaders discussed issues of global financial crisis, particularly their impact on the world’s poorest.

“The crisis we are seeing today will impact all countries, developed and developing, but its most serious repercussions will be felt most by those who are least responsible – the poor in developing countries,” the officials said in a joint statement after the meeting.

During the meeting, the Secretary-General told participants that “drastic measures” will be needed to resolve the financial crisis, possibly including the IMF and the world’s major central banks setting up substantial standby lines of credit so that banks in poor countries have adequate funds to draw on in an emergency.

Following the conference, Mr. Ban reiterated the UN’s position on the global financial crisis and the needs of the undeveloped world.

“All agreed that the UN has a special responsibility, the protection of the poorest and most vulnerable…We express our full commitment to the cause of economic development and will do our utmost to deal with the repercussions of this worldwide crisis,” he said.

On 15 November world leaders – including Mr. Ban – will gather in Washington for a summit to devise ways to respond to the crisis.

———

The above sounds a bit like exaggerated self-laudatory on the part of the UN – after all the IMF is beholden rather to the rich countries of the post- WWII era, and not even to the new money of the present day, newly developed or oil exporting countries.

\The simple truth is that some of the main share holders of the Bretton Woods institutions, including the IMF, are now the post global-financial crash the new poor countries that caught the poverty flue. OK, some of the perpetually poor countries, continue to be poor, but they were too poor to suffer from the recent conflagration.

Iceland did not have to be in the present hole, Hungary for sure, and the Ukraine maybe, could also have avoided the present suffering.

These are not countries cared for by UNDP, so why does the UN craw about help extended to them?

Obama-led US would protect eastern Europe.
VALENTINA POP, October 5, 2008 for the   EUOBSERVER from BRUSSELS.
 http://euobserver.com/9/26863/?rk=1

If elected president of the US, senator Barack Obama would not trade eastern European security for Russian help on Iran, his senior foreign policy advisor, Gregory B. Craig, told EUobserver in an interview. Any notion that the US tried to sabotage the Lisbon treaty is “silly,” he added.

Barack Obama will be a more “pro-European” president if elected, his advisor says. Mr Obama would be a “much more pro-European president” than his Republican predecessor if elected on 4 November, said Mr Craig – a lawyer who led former president Bill Clinton’s defence against impeachment and also worked as foreign policy advisor to former secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

The US and Europe will have to co-operate with Russia in areas where they have “common objectives and common ground,” especially on non-proliferation – reduction of the global nuclear arsenal, security of nuclear materials and challenges such as North Korea and Iran – senator Obama’s foreign policy man explained.

“[But] that doesn’t mean that you trade away our security commitments to the new members of NATO, that’s not even thinkable. I always remember the notion that the expansion of NATO was not a threat to Russia, that this was a decision not by NATO to move east, but a decision by the new democracies from the former Soviet space to integrate with the West.”

“The notion that you choose to co-operate with Russia vis-a-vis Iran at the expense of central and eastern Europe, I just don’t accept that. That’s not viable and it won’t happen that way,” Mr Craig said.

Russia’s aggressive stance toward neighbours who want to be part of NATO and the EU is a historical throwback, he added. “I think the notion that Russia has a veto over what they decide inside of Ukraine or Georgia is very 19th to 20th century. In a 21st century world, with global impacts, global trends, Russia suffered enormously economically as a result of its intervention in Georgia.”

The Obama advisor underlined that new members of NATO are protected by a “solemn security commitment,” while NATO aspirant states can look to the United Nations charter that “requires nation states to respect the sovereignty of other nation states.”

“Although a country like Ukraine is not a member of NATO, Russia does not have under international law the right to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine. Even if there is no security obligation, the people of Europe and US will be supportive of the freedom and independence of the Ukrainian people to make their own decisions, to choose democracy and affiliate themselves with Western institutions if they want to.”

Mr Craig said that senator Obama would also stick to plans to build parts of the US global missile shield in Poland and the Czech republic, despite fierce Russian criticism. The new Democratic president would “not turn his back on that agreement” as it is a “solemn commitment” signed by Washington, Prague and Warsaw.

“The timing, pace and scope of the implementation of that agreement is going to be a matter left to the discretion of the president of the United States,” he added, however.

US military facilities in Romania and Bulgaria – also disliked by Moscow – are not up for discussion either, Mr Craig said. “Democracies from the former Soviet space have every right to make their own decisions,” he explained, calling the notion of a Russian veto a “relic of the Soviet past.”

Obama good for EU-US ties:

The Obama camp believes America-bashing is decreasing in the EU in a trend that would be accelerated by a Democratic victory in November.

The European Parliament president’s recent request for an investigation into alleged CIA funding of the irish No-campaign against the Lisbon treaty is a freak event resulting from the parliament’s own upcoming elections in 2009, Mr Craig said.

“Every election has its silly season … this speculation or rumour that the CIA would support the No vote in Ireland is preposterous.”

“It seems to me that the European Union has some problems with its public relations, not just in Ireland, but also elsewhere where the [EU] constitution has been defeated. That should not, in my view, deter the Europeans from continuing on the course of consolidating its institutions, the rule of law, economic trading agreements and greater co-operation. This has been the policy of many, many US presidents and it will be the policy of president Obama to support that.”

Asked why senator Obama didn’t stop in Brussels during his European tour in July – which included Berlin, Paris and London – his advisor said it was just a question of “limited time.”

“We couldn’t include every capital that we wanted to visit. We regretted not being able to go to Brussels for many reasons – because it’s the European Union, it’s NATO, it’s a capital in itself of importance. And there is no doubt that at some point early in his administration, if elected, senator Obama would visit Brussels.”

No “League of Democracies”

Senator Obama also disagrees with Republican candidate John McCain’s idea of creating “League of Democracies”, a new global institution excluding Russia and China designed to escape the perceived deadlock of the United Nations Security Council, Mr Craig said.

“We would not want to exclude governments and nations from where their participation is required to solve problems. Creating another organisation that draws a line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is not productive in solving the great challenges that face the world’s democracies today,” he explained.

“As flawed as it is, [the UN] is still the place people go to solve their problems. Not only about war and peace, but also about poverty and development, disease and the future of the planet. Creating yet another institution called the League of Democracies won’t get us where we want to go,” Mr Craig said.

EU states agree to invite Belarus minister {as an outsider to their foreign ministers’ meeting.}
PHILIPPA RUNNER, EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS, October 3, 2008.

EU states have agreed to invite Belarus foreign minister Sergei Martynov to a prestigious meeting in Brussels, as the French EU presidency struggles to counter Russian diplomacy on the union’s eastern fringe.

The Belarusian minister is to take part in a “troika” with EU foreign relations chief Javier Solana, external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner on 13 October, on the margins of a wider EU foreign ministers’ meeting on the same day.

Senior EU diplomats made the decision in Brussels on Friday (3 October), with Mr Kouchner’s office set to rubber-stamp the move before a formal invitation goes out. A previous suggestion to bring Mr Martynov to Paris in September was judged premature at the time.

The formal invitation may be made before Monday, when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plans to visit Minsk, in order to show Belarus that the EU is taking seriously its latest offer of a rapprochement with the West.

“We wouldn’t like to leave Belarus in the arms of Russia,” a French diplomat told EUobserver. “We want to see what we could do in order not to give up [EU] sanctions totally, the sticks, but to give some carrots at the same time.”

France is “considering” the risk that Mr Putin will use the threat of gas price hikes against Belarus in 2009 to pressure the country into recognising Georgia rebel enclaves South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, she added.

The Martynov-troika meeting would signal a breakthrough in EU-Belarus relations. In 1997, the EU froze contacts with Belarus officials above the deputy-minister level, and between 2004 and 2006 imposed a visa ban on 41 officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko.

Belarussian parliamentary elections last Sunday were judged undemocratic by the EU and the OSCE. But Belarus has released political prisoners and allowed small anti-Lukashenko protests, as it seeks Western support in a bid to resist becoming a Russian client state.

***
Unturning the screw:

The EU is also considering relaxing its legal sanctions package on top of the one-off Martynov gesture.

The latest options discussed internally include a temporary suspension of the visa ban for some of the names on the list. The suspension could include President Lukashenko himself, but not people such as Viktor Sheyman, a former security chief implicated in the disappearance of three anti-government activists in 1999.

The EU is also debating ending the 1997 ban on high-level contacts and chopping the costs of EU visas from €60 (one third the average monthly wage in Belarus) to €35 per visit.

The visa move could help build pro-EU sentiment among ordinary Belarusians and advertise the benefits of political reform. “We want people to come to Vilnius and see how things look in a democracy, how much we have prospered,” a Lithuanian official said.

Any sanctions decision will wait until the 13 October EU foreign ministers’ meeting however, in case the unpredictable President Lukashenko makes a u-turn after the Putin visit next week.

Dutch obstacle:

The large majority of EU states in favour of softening sanctions will also have to persuade Dutch foreign minister Maxim Verhagen of the merit of such a move.

“We are not convinced there has been any major improvement [in the political climate in Belarus]. He [Mr Verhagen] doesn’t see any grounds for a substantial change,” a Dutch diplomat said.

“We’re talking about human rights here and we have to take things seriously,” he added. “This has all the makings of being a substantial discussion point in the GAERC [the EU foreign ministers gathering].”

Even though the bill grew from 3 pages to 110 pages, the Conservative Republicans wanted no part of it.

The bill was defeated 228 – 205 with 140 Democrats voting for it and 95 opposing.   You can say thus that the Democrats stuck their neck out and were afraid to be seen as those that derailed the President and brought on a calamity – and a clear calamity is in the making indeed. Money runs away from the stock market and into US treasuries that give now next to no returns at all. So, investors look for a safe haven and really do not care about not making gains. The best deal is now a 3 months treasury bill – and some may even think of bars of gold in the attic. The European Central Banks have stopped selling gold.

So, McCain came to Washington to help the President but his party failed him. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Leader of the House of Representatives, in introducing the Bill, said the truth – it was the nearly eight years of Bush that destroyed the Clinton savings and caused the present situation – this made the Republicans so furious that they decided to bite their own hands and vote NO! That is what the Republicans want us to think now – as we said – they built a trap for the Democrats – A You Die if you-do-or if -you-don’t. The election for President is not the issue now – it is the election of the House members.

Those folks did not want to be accused of having agreed to the bailout and will now fight the Democrats on very skewed levels.

McCain has problems, and Palin is irrelevant to the process.

The President of the Ukraine got the lesson of his life – not everyday you can see a superpower in its nakedness.

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A vindicated Europe celebrates ‘civilised’ capitalism.
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin and John Thornhill in Paris, The Financial Times,   September 29 2008.

As Peer Steinbrück pondered recent events on Wall Street, Germany’s hard-nosed finance minister could not help indulging in a bit of futurology. “When we look back 10 years from now,” he told journalists on Thursday, “we will see 2008 as a fundamental rupture.” The US, he said, would lose its role as a “finance superpower”.

Yet while US commentators may have interpreted such remarks as heralding a statist renaissance in Europe, there are few signs yet that the old continent is turning its back on the free market.

Yes, there is anger in Berlin and Paris at Washington’s refusal – up until after the outbreak of the subprime crisis – to heed European calls for more regulated markets. The proposals Berlin had made during its presidency of the Group of Eight industrial nations last year “elicited mockery at best or were seen as a typical example of Germans’ penchant for over-regulation”, Mr Steinbrück said.

Crisis management alone would not rebuild the lost confidence, he added. “We must civilise financial markets, and not just through moral appeals against excess and speculation.”

***

In a speech in Toulon on Thursday, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said the world would have to learn the lessons of the financial crisis and rethink the values and practices of globalisation. This would mean shifting the emphasis from speculation to entrepreneurship and restoring a proper balance between the market and the state.

“The market economy is a regulated market, a market that is at the service of development, at the service of society, at the service of all. It is not the law of the jungle,” he said, predicting the end of laisser faire capitalism.

***

Officials in Berlin point to calls by Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, to curb excessive bonuses as evidence that a new consensus is emerging in Europe that could bridge the old divide between Britain and the continent.

No doubt the Europeans will now find new vigour in defending those areas that remain untouched by liberalisation. Mr Steinbrück said the country’s three-pillar banking system, with state, co-operative and commercial banks, had proven more robust than its two-tier US counterpart.

The crisis also presents Europe with an opportunity to push for more international co-operation, as it has done before in areas ranging from international security to climate change. Mr Sarkozy has supported the expansion of the G8 to include big emerging economies such as China and India, as well as calling for reform of the International Monetary Fund. “We cannot continue to manage the economy of the 21st century with the instruments of the 20th century economy,” he said.

Yet it would be wrong to read such statements as precursors of a general retreat of liberalism on the continent. In his speech, Mr Sarkozy defended the essence of capitalism that had permitted the “extraordinary surge of western civilisation over the past seven centuries”. He also said it would be a “historic error” to return to the collectivism of the past that had been responsible for so many disasters. In Germany, the world’s largest exporter of goods, politicians are all too conscious of how much their country has benefited from trade liberalisation.

Meanwhile, the last thing Ms Merkel and Mr Steinbrück want is for the radical Left party, a coalition of defectors from the Social Democratic party and former East German Communists, to turn the crisis into ammunition for next year’s general election. In June, Ms Merkel told the FT she was worried that attempts to discredit free-market liberalism would play into the left’s hands.

As Mr Steinbrück put it before German legislators: “Neither calls for more state nor naive beliefs in market forces will help us in our task of shaping the economy in a way that will allow all to benefit from stable, crisis-free growth.”

Chinese company wants to buy Brussels Airlines and its Airport.
VALENTINA POP, September 5, 2008.

Chinese airline Hainan may challenge a bid by Lufthansa to buy Brussels Airlines, with the Asian firm already in talks to snap up Belgium’s Charleroi airport.

German carrier Lufthansa remains the favourite bidder for Brussels Airlines, but some shareholders in the Belgian company believe the offer is too low and are looking at other partners, such as British Airways and Hainan, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Friday (5 September).

Late last week, Lufthansa said it was in “constructive negotiations” to acquire a 45 percent stake in Brussels Airlines for €65 million, expecting to close the deal within the next few weeks. The remaining stake was then to be taken over after two years.

But shareholders in Brussels Airlines believe the carrier is worth at least €200 million. Brussels Airlines is the heir to the bankrupt Sabena, with a 30 percent share having been taken over in 2006 by Richard Branson’s Virgin Express.

Hainan’s interest in Brussels Airlines is fortified by its bid for Charleroi airport, a low-cost hub 46 km south of the Belgian capital.

Hainan is among the three companies shortlisted to buy up the currently publicly owned Charleroi airport, with the Chinese company saying it is one of their priorities and promising further developments of the low cost terminal, La Libre Belgique reported on Tuesday.

The move has sparked internal competition between Charleroi and the main Brussels airport, Zaventem, out of which Hainan operates a number of flights. Unidentified sources close to the deal told the Belgian newspaper that the managers of Zaventem had launched a “sabotage and denigration campaign” of Charleroi airport, in order to distract the Chinese.

La Libre Belgique also reported that the Flemish region and the Brussels Airport Company (BAC) who manages Zaventem gave Hainan Airlines financial advantages worth €1.5 million.

The newspaper draws a comparison with the aid offered by the Charleroi airport and the Walloon region to the Irish carrier Ryanair, aid deemed illegal by the European Commission in 2004.

After having read the newspaper report, the Walloon minister for transportation, Andre Antoine, said: “Nobody is stupid. The aim of the manoeuvre is to attract the Chinese to Zaventem, not Charleroi.”

Zaventem is Brussel’s main international airport.

In return, BAC said it didn’t understand the minister’s reaction and didn’t see any problems with the €1.5 million contract it signed two years ago with the Chinese company, in order to promote the Flemish region in Shanghai and Beijing. The contract does not involve directly neither BAC, nor Hainan Airlines, a press spokesman for BAC said.

La Libre Belgique reported that the contract involved some €400,000 being payed to Hainan for “marketing support” and €200,000 for language training for the pilots of the company. Only €900,000 were allocated to promoting the region in China, the newspaper says.

———————-

[Comment / Opinion on EUobserver] After Georgia: is Ukraine next?
ANDREW WILSON, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, September 5, 2008.

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - The war in Georgia began by exposing the security vacuum in the surrounding region. Now it has claimed its first collateral victim, after the fall of the Ukrainian government on 2 September.

The crisis has been brewing over the summer recess, but came to a head in late August after President Yushchenko’s administration accused Prime Minister Tymoshenko of trading her relative silence over Georgia for Russian support in a campaign to supplant him as president.

Ukraine president Viktor Yushchenko – the 2004 Orange Revolution feels a long time ago (Photo: timoshenko.com.ua)

When parliament reassembled, Tymoshenko joined forces with the east Ukrainian-based Party of Regions, ramming through a law to reduce presidential power, and apparently repositioning herself as a more pro-Russian candidate in the presidential race.

Parliament was also unable to agree any of several diametrically opposed resolutions on Georgia, ranging from outright condemnation of Russia to recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The crisis comes in between the emergency EU summit on Russia-Georgia in Brussels on 1 September and the regular EU-Ukraine summit on 9 September in Evian, France.

The EU therefore has an ideal opportunity to push back against Russia’s attempts to dominate the European neighbourhood by starting with Ukraine, which is also the linchpin for the whole region.

***

War of words:

Many Ukrainians now hear domestic echoes of the lead-up to war in Georgia. Ukraine has its own potentially separatist region in Crimea, and the country’s Russian minority numbers some 8.3 million (the largest minority in Europe).

Half of Ukraine’s population of just over 46 million are Russian-speaking in various degrees. Although the Ukrainian constitution bans dual citizenship, the government has launched an inquiry into alleged covert Russian passport-holding in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

Some Ukrainians note that Russia justified its invasion of Georgia, as the Nazis once justified their dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, as being necessary to “protect” a minority to whom they had just given citizenship.

Russia has begun a war of words over Ukraine’s alleged supply of arms to Georgia. And the conflict itself has shown that the Russian Black Sea Fleet, based in Sevastopol, can operate with impunity, whether Ukraine likes it or not.

Based on its analysis of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” as a foreign-backed “NGO coup,” Russia has also been quietly building its own network of Russia-friendly NGOs in Ukraine since 2004.

Ukrainians also talk of an otkat ekonomiya (“kickback economy”), in which Russian money percolates throughout the Ukrainian elite.

***

A strategy for Ukraine:

What should the EU therefore offer in Evian? The European Neighborhood Policy is a worthy enough technical process, but it does not address pressing political concerns about maintaining and securing Ukraine’s independence.

Many member states will worry about leaping straight to the contentious issue of ultimate membership for Ukraine, but the EU already recognizes Ukraine’s theoretical right to join once it has met the Copenhagen criteria; and it cannot be beyond EU leaders’ verbal dexterity to play up the prospect.

What Ukraine would value and needs most is a real sense that it is being treated distinctly in its own right. The key words are “association” and “partnership,” in whatever order or combination.

The EU has greater scope for short-term measures, which should be designed to deliver a multi-dimensional solidarity strategy for Ukraine.

The EU’s foreign ministers should invite their Ukrainian counterpart to give a briefing on Ukraine-Russia relations at their next meeting.

Ukraine should be offered a road map for visa-free travel, as well as ensuring that member states deliver on current visa facilitation measures. The new EU-Ukraine agreement should include a beefed-up solidarity clause, building on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, whereby the EU would consult and assist Ukraine in case of challenges to its territorial integrity and sovereignty. And the EU should back Ukraine if it insists that the Russian Black Sea Fleet leaves on schedule in 2017.

The EU should also launch a comprehensive study of all aspects of Europe’s reliance on Russian energy supplies, including transit, energy security and conservation, supply diversification, and the impact of “bypass” pipelines like Nordstream and South Stream.

It should consider linking the opening of the Nordstream pipeline, which would allow Russia to cut off gas to Poland and Ukraine while maintaining deliveries to Germany, to the opening of the proposed “White Stream” pipeline to bring gas from Azerbaijan directly to Ukraine via Georgia, bypassing Russia.

The EU could even play a part in keeping the 2012 European Championship football finals on track. The decision to appoint Ukraine and Poland as co-hosts was a powerful symbol of European unity across the current EU border (Poland is a member, Ukraine is not).

UEFA is unhappy with Ukraine’s progress in building the necessary infrastructure, but Ukraine should be given time to get its act together.

Where appropriate, the EU should extend these measures to Moldova, which is now calling Ukraine a “strategic shelter,” most probably after the elections in March 2009.

Ukraine faces a crucial presidential election in 2009 or 2010. After getting its fingers badly burned at the last election in 2004, Russia is clearly tempted to intervene again. The “Russian factor” will strongly influence the campaign.

Greater Western engagement is needed to ensure that the “Europe factor” is equally prominent.

The EU Must Reengage in the Moldova’s Transnistria (Trans-Dniester ) Problem To Avoid a Russian-Ossetian Type of Intrusion. What is at Stake here Is the Clear Return to a Reasserting Russia That Has Throws a Shadow Reading   Cold War II. Front-line Countries are the GUAM Countries: Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. The Latter Is The Only One That Does Not Border Russia – But Is In Danger of Becoming Another Belarus.

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[Comment] The EU should re-engage with Moldova’s ‘frozen conflict.’
Nicu Popescu, August 30, 2008, The EUoserver.

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – Recently, the EU has learned that a war over an obscure place such as South Ossetia can shatter the arrangements of post-Cold War Europe. The armed conflict between Russia and Georgia has reverberated even more shockingly across the post-Soviet space. Without stronger engagement with its neighbours, the EU might end up with a bi-polar Europe, not a “ring of friends” in its neighbourhood.

In addition to Abkhazia and South Ossetia [in Georgia], Transnistria is a third “frozen conflict” zone supported politically, economically and militarily by the Russian Federation and used to exert influence on Moldova. The war in Georgia is beginning to have an impact in Moldova. The danger is not that of another war, but of unsustainable peace and the transformation of Moldova into a second Belarus.

***

At just 100 kilometers from the EU border, Transnistria is the closest unsolved secessionist conflict to the European Union. This conflict undermines Moldovan statehood, threatens Romania and Ukraine’s security and complicates EU-Russia relations. In the last years the EU has significantly stepped up its engagement in Moldova. The EU offered Moldova a visa-facilitation agreement and trade liberalization as well as making Moldova the second biggest recipient of EU assistance in the European neighbourhood (after Palestine). The EU also appointed an EU Special Representative, introduced a travel ban against Transnistrian leaders, and launched an 120 people-strong EU Border Assistance Mission to reduce the smuggling on which Transnistria thrived. The EU efforts are partly effective, but they need time, which might be in short supply.

***

On the wings of a military victory in Georgia, Russia’s president Dmitri Medvedev convoked his Moldovan counterpart, Vladimir Voronin, to a summit in Sochi. Russia offered Moldova a settlement in Transnistria on Russian terms, or to face gradual recognition of Transnistrian independence. Russia wants a return to the “Kozak Memorandum” – a 2003 deal on Transnistria that the EU and Moldova refused for fear of entrenching Russian military presence in Moldova. Russia also wants Moldova to interrupt virtually all its cooperation with NATO, condemn Georgia, possibly end the presence of the EU Border Assistance Mission in the region and accept a dysfunctional federalisation agreement.

The Moldovan government has been ready to accept some Russian conditions, but not a Russian military presence in the reunified Moldova. It also wants Russian peacekeepers to be replaced with international civilian monitors, but has little EU support on that. On this really tough issue Moldova is left pretty much on its own with Russia.

***

The EU has an enormous, but untapped potential in Moldova. This country is on the EU’s fringe, but 1,000 km away from Russia. Moldova wants to join the EU. The EU accounts for over half of Moldovan external trade, while Russia has roughly 15 percent. Still, many EU member states have been too hesitant to support stronger EU involvement in Moldova.

The EU’s biggest failure is to push for the transformation of the Russia-dominated and biased peacekeeping operation in Moldova. The EU discussed this twice. In 2003, the idea was refused by Russia. But in 2006 a few EU member states killed the scheme for fear of irritating Russia. This approach now has to be revisited in the light of the Georgian crisis.

***

There are four things the EU should do to send a symbolically powerful signal of engagement. The first, is for EU High Representative Javier Solana to visit Moldova, a country he has not been to since 2001. In the aftermath of the war in Georgia, European heads of state and foreign ministers have visited Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan to show solidarity, but not Moldova (except for the Romanian president).

The second, is for EU member states to urgently agree on a mandate to launch negotiations on a new enhanced EU-Moldova agreement, a process that is already underway with Ukraine and even Russia. The negotiations themselves on this agreement could start after the Moldovan elections in March 2009. Despite some problems with democracy, Moldova along with Ukraine still remains one of the most pluralistic post-Soviet states.

Thirdly, the EU should agree internally that the current peacekeeping format in Transnistria is biased and should launch an initiative to internationalize the force, while offering a comprehensive EU civilian presence upon Moldovan invitation.

Fourth, the EU should offer to discuss a road-map for a visa-free regime between the EU and Moldova. This would be the strongest signal for both Moldova and Transnistria that they have a future in a Europeanised and reunified country. And it would also be a good demonstration of the EU’s ability to prevent future instability and conflict in its neighbourhood through soft, not hard, power.

Nicu Popescu is research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, London office