Last week, the Moldovan authorities announced the decision by which the Embassy of the Russian Federation was requested to significantly reduce the number of diplomats and technical and administrative personnel. As a result, Moldova can be confronted with particular problems as this is an extraordinary decision with regard to a very specific state. Each decision of such a level has an inevitable price. The experts invited to IPN’s public debate “Diplomatic parity and its price” discussed the possible nature of these problems and the solutions prepared by the Moldovan authorities to do away with or at least alleviate the consequences of the expected harsh actions on the part of Russia.
The permanent expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan said the diplomatic relations between states are regulated by the Vienna Convention of April 18, 1961. Article 11 of the Convention provides that “in the absence of specific agreement as to the size of the mission, the receiving State may require that the size of a mission be kept within limits considered by it to be reasonable and normal, having regard to circumstances and conditions in the receiving State and to the needs of the particular mission. The receiving State may equally, within similar bounds and on a non-discriminatory basis, refuse to accept officials of a particular category.”
Igor Boțan noted that in accordance with the Convention, the Moldovan authorities decided to equal the number of diplomatic, administrative and technical specialists at the Embassy of Russia in Chisinau with the number of specialists at Moldova’s Embassy in Russia. At the current stage, each state will be represented, based on the principle of parity, by ten diplomats and 15 administrative and technical employees. The decision was taken following multiple unfriendly actions towards the Republic of Moldova, which do not bear relation to the diplomatic mandate, and attempts to destabilize the internal situation in the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration is the authority that regulates the diplomatic relations.
According to him, the Convention does not explicitly stipulate the expulsion of diplomats, but refers to personnel declared non grata. This way, the receiving State can anytime inform the other state, without providing arguments, that a member of the diplomatic personnel is a persona non grata or is not accepted.
Ex-Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Gheorghe Bălan, expert in security issues, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ decision is not unordinary as such cases happen everywhere in the world. “During the last few years, we were all witnesses to cases when hundreds of diplomats, primarily of the Russian Federation, after the launch of the active phase of the war in Ukraine, have been expelled. But there were other cases earlier, when diplomats during the Cold War were expelled on accusations of espionage. There were many diplomats who ensured exchanges between countries in order to limit one way or another the unfavorable effects of their presence on the territory,” explained Gheorghe Bălan.
According to him, in Moldova’s case it was a normal reaction that was probably a little bit late as the EU member states adopted such decisions last year, when about 500 Russian diplomats were sent home. Other countries followed the principle of parity that the Republic of Moldova also applied. It also goes to risks posed to Moldova by the work of these persons on the country’s territory in the regional security context, amidst the war in Ukraine, to stability in Moldova, given the hybrid war. In such conditions, this reaction is a normal one.
Gheorghe Bălan noted the over 70 Russian diplomats and technical staff members working in Moldova was an exaggerated figure. Moldova now has six diplomats and up to ten technical employees at the embassy in Moscow and these manage to deal with the problems of the diaspora, to promote the cultural relations and also the commercial relations. The positive interactions between the two states have diminished the past few years. Bilateral tensions were experienced as a result of the pressure to which Moldova and its citizens were subjected during the period after the declaring of Independence – bans, energy pressure, deportation of citizens working in Russia.
“Why did the Republic of Moldova react and took these actions? We have an unsolved conflict on our country’s territory. A part of those collaborators of the embassy went and provided consular services even if the Moldovan authorities were against such acts. But these continued. We also have a military presence without the consent of the authorities of the Republic of Moldova, which has been coordinated and supported by the Embassy of the Russian Federation,” said the expert in security issues.
Political scientist Dionis Cenușa, an associate expert of the Eastern Europe Studies Center of Lithuania, said the Russian Federation is interested in keeping its influence in the region and Moldova forms part of its close vicinity, according to Russia’s foreign policy strategy. “Respectively, the presence of a very large number of diplomats, including spies under cover, is from Moscow’s viewpoint a necessary, useful instrument for maintaining its present in the region, in the Republic of Moldova,” stated Dionis Cenușa, who is IPN’s senior contributor.
According to him, the activeness of Russia’s Embassy in Moldova depends a lot on the dynamics of the political dialogue between Chisinau and Moscow, which deteriorated even before the start of the war against Ukraine. The first fissures in the bilateral relations were seen back in 2021, during the gas crisis. After the war in Ukraine became a reality, Moldova chose to be the ally of Ukraine and the West against the Russian Federation’s military aggression.
“What we see now seems to me to be a correct, but late reaction and it is also somehow not fully clear. I attentively analyzed the justification of a number of states that decided to reduce the number of Russian diplomats and could identify two categories of reactions and behaviors of the states. One category was related to the fact that the states considered the activities of the diplomats were unjustified as these were actually involved in espionage activities. The second category is very much close to the argument about the parity. Estonia is one of the countries that provided a very clear explanation about parity. They said that given the current geopolitical context, they cannot have the same type of diplomatic relations and the number of Russian diplomats should be decreased to the number of diplomats Estonia has in the Russian Federation. Everything is very clear. The reason and the subsequent steps wer explained,” stated Dionis Cenușa.
He considers that in Moldova’s case there was an amalgam of explanations and a journalistic investigation was the triggering factor as if it hadn’t been known earlier that Russian diplomas under cover conducted all kinds of activities. So, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs waited for the investigation so as to have a public argument to explain its reaction, through the parity mechanism.
“I do not see a coherent and convincing approach. This enables the Russians, Moscow and the Russian propagandists to use the Republic of Moldova’s decisions, to politicize them and to create confusion inside the population of Moldova. The better is the republic’s position on its decision explained, the smaller is the opportunity to discredit its decision that from my viewpoint is justified,” noted the political pundit.
The public debate entitled “Diplomatic parity and its price” was the 287th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
