“We don’t have the right to treat them as strangers. Communism failed everywhere. It will collapse in Moldova too”, Romania’s President Traian Basescu told an evening show on TVR1. Basescu broached the issue of Romania’s relations with the neighbouring Moldova towards the end of the show, after which he gave explanations about Romania’s involvement in European policymaking, explained which advantages and disadvantages the EU membership has offered one year after accession, and to what extent Romania manages to influence the EU agenda. The Romanian head of state has said he will not pay his Moldovan counterpart back in his own coin and that he wishes to maintain a close relationship with the neighbours across the Prut, whom he considers “a sea of Romanians”. Traian Basescu made it clear that he wants the Romanian Government to ease the procedure for Romanian citizenship for Moldovan applicants, who must not bear the consequences of the actions of the ruling Communist party.