Moldovan-Romanian relations: Quo Vadis? Commentary by Victor Chirila, program director at the Foreign Policy Association, for Info-Prim Neo

The politicians in Moldova and Romania during the past ten years have made use of the notion of pragmatism, trying to bring the bilateral Moldovan-Romanian relations to normality. But every time, the politicians failed in their commendable attempts. Besides, the notion of pragmatism was gradually discredited so that it turned into a euphemism that hides the helplessness of the two states to work out a common strategy for developing partnership relations. The official visit to Chisinau made by the Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu on July 7 is expected to be a new start of pragmatism in the Moldovan-Romanian relations. A question arises in such circumstances: is pragmatism a credible and viable conception that can bring the relations between the two countries to normality? Even without a thorough analysis of the Moldovan-Romanian relations during the past ten years, we can say that the bilateral relations had and, regretfully, continue to have, a sinusoidal course that can be compared with an American slide that arouses a tingling sensation in the officials from the two capital cities and only terrible dizziness among the public of the two states, especially Moldova. Evidently, this sinusoidal course was repeatedly interrupted by short periods of pragmatism that supervened after long periods of conflicts between the Moldovan and Romanian authorities. Basing on pragmatism, the two states intended to normalize their relations and, simultaneously, to avoid or gradually solve difficult political matters. The Moldovan-Romanian relations over the past ten years have been marked by three periods of pragmatism: 1) 1998-2000; 2) April – October 2001; 3) January 2005 – July 2006. It seems that we will soon witness the fourth period pragmatism, which, for the time being, remains a hope fueled mainly by the markedly declarative results of the official visit paid recently by the Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu to Chisinau. [The first period of pragmatism] covers the years 1998 – 2000. During this period, the two states had been headed by pro-Democratic parties and parties that pleaded for integration into the Euro-Atlantic organizations. In Bucharest, these parties were represented by the Democratic Convention of Romania (CDR), while in Chisinau – by the Alliance for Democracy and Reforms (ADR). The coincidence of political values and principles between the CDR and ADR and of the foreign and home policy objectives respected and pursued by the two democratic alliances created the preconditions needed to initiate a pragmatic period in Moldova’s relations with Romania at that time. This period witnessed a diminishing identity-linguistic rhetoric. As this rhetoric was not dominating the bilateral relations anymore, the political dialogue between Chisinau and Bucharest was extended and promoted at the three most important levels: Heads of State, Parliaments and Governments. The two Presidential Offices carried out an intense dialogue. In 1998 alone, the Presidents of Moldova and Romania, Petru Lucinschi and Emil Constantinescu, had met three times. During this period, the Moldovan Head of Parliament Dumitru Diacov had made two working visits to Bucharest (in June 1998 and April 1999). The President of the Romanian Senate Mircea Ionescu Quintus paid a working visit to Chisinau in April 2000. Also, the Romanian Prime Minister Radu Vasile paid an official visit to Chisinau in May 1999, while the Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Sturza visited Bucharest in August the same year. The list of bilateral visits can be extended, but what is more important is that owing to the intense political dialogue that covered a wide range of topics, lacked prejudice and historical frustrations and, principally, centered on a joint partnership in the area of European integration, the two states managed to negotiate and sign the Privileged Partnership and Cooperation Treaty between Moldova and Romania in April 2000. It should be noted that the treaty was the result of a compromise reached by the sides on certain matters of principle, after seven years of interminable talks. Owing to this compromise, the two sides succeeded in working out a political document whereby Chisinau and Bucharest recognized the special character of the bilateral relations based on privileged ties with roots in the historic past and on the common culture and language of Moldova and Romania. At the same time, the sides set out the major objectives and principles that would guide their future privileged partnership based especially “on the reciprocal support for their efforts to become part of the European organizations within a united Europe”, and on Romania’s commitment “to actively support, at international level, the actions that Moldova will take to keep its unity and statehood as sole subject of international law.” At the same time, the more intense political dialogue had a positive impact on the development of cooperation in the economic area. In the given period, Romania was among Moldova’s main economic partners. Trade between the two countries rose constantly. Consequently, Romania became Moldova’s second main commercial partner after Russia. The bilateral cooperation in energy industry was resumed and Moldova was connected to Romania’s energy system. Romania showed increased interest in the privatization of the Moldovan industrial companies. Intending to attract Romanian investment into Moldova, the Moldovan Government offered Romania to buy 51% of the shares in the Moldovan oil company Tirex-Petrol in exchange for Moldova’s debts to Romania collected when importing electric power. Ultimately, the Moldovan Government’s intention failed, sending thus a discouraging signal to the potential Romanian investors. Also, due to the development of the Moldovan-Romanian relations and of the Romanian-Ukrainian relations, there were created the two Euroregions: the Low Danube (1998) and the Upper Prut (2000). All the mentioned accomplishments were yet overshadowed by the non-signing by the Governments of Romania and Moldova of the Privileged Partnership and Cooperation Treaty initialed in Chisinau on April 28, 2000. That was a joint failure caused by the political instability in Chisinau in 2000 and by the change of governments - in autumn 2000 in Romania and in spring 2001 in Moldova. [The second period of pragmatism] includes the period between April 2001 and October 2001. During this period of pragmatism, the authorities focused exclusively on the economic and cultural-education cooperation and neglected almost fully the thorny political issues. This time, the pragmatism was not based on the coincidence of democratic pro-reform and pro-European integration visions that existed between Chisinau and Bucharest between 1998 and 2000. The new ruling party in Romania, the Party of Social Democracy (PDSR), and the new President of Romania Ion Iliescu, stuck to the objective of European integration. Yet, the situation in Chisinau was different. The Communist Party of Moldova (PCRM) comes to power elected democratically, while the PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin, who openly spoke in favor of Moldova’s accelerated integration into the Commonwealth of Independent States and joining of the Russia-Belarus Union, was elected as Moldova’s President. In addition, PCRM brought a lot of Romania-phobic prejudice and frustrations. As a result of political divergences, Chisinau and Bucharest employed the concept of pragmatism in order to reach a Modus Vivendi that could prevent the pending conflict situations, caused by the abovementioned disagreements. The focus on economic projects and the avoidance of political matters did not produce the expected results. Most of the joint economic projects remained only proposals. A relevant example is the Romanian Government’s proposals to participate in the modernization and privatization of Moldova’s energy sector and winemaking sector and to help build a railway with European gauge that would connect the two states. Chisinau did not pay the necessary attention to these and other economic projects. On July 19, 2001, in the height of the pragmatic development of the bilateral relations, the Moldovan Parliament discussed and adopted the Law on the Rights of the Persons Belonging to National Minorities and on the Legal Status of their Organizations by the vote of the Communist MPs and six MPs of the Braghis Alliance. The given law strengthened the role and status of the Russian language in Moldova. The law brought the identity-linguistic armistice, which was tacitly agreed by the Moldovan and Romanian Presidents, Ion Iliescu and Vladimir Voronin, at an official meeting in Bucharest on May 1, 2001, to an end. The adoption of the law on the rights of the persons that belong to national minorities by the Moldovan Parliament was interpreted by President Ion Iliescu as launch of a theory that proves the existence of the Moldovan language different from the Romanian one and aims to denationalize the Romanians from Moldova. The spirits grew hot gradually in both of the capital cities, especially after President Vladimir Voronin promulgated the mentioned law on August 28, 2001, three days before the national holiday “Our Language”. The phrase “a people two Romanian states” was again used in the public rhetoric of the Romanian politicians, especially in the Romanian Parliament, which included a powerful fraction of the Romania Mare Party (PRM) during 2000-2004. The rhetoric in Bucharest had as effect the exacerbation of the Romani-phobic prejudice and frustrations of the Moldovan governors. Consequently, the political dialogue between Chisinau and Bucharest began to worsen, being transformed into a ping-pong of verbal altercations. As a result, the pragmatism from April 2001 – October 2001 was destroyed by the inimical statement made by the Moldovan Minister of Justice Ion Morei at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which examined the case of the Bessarabian Metropolitan Church. Minister Morei leveled tough criticism at Romania, which he accused of “direct interference in the affairs of the sovereign and independent state, the Republic of Moldova”, and of “disseminating discord between the faithful in order to create, gradually, confrontation and a perpetual belligerent state so as to destabilize the social and political situation in Moldova”. [The third period of pragmatism] started in January 2005 and lasted until July 2006. The pragmatism from this period centered on the joint integration of Moldova and Romania into the EU, thing that became possible after the Moldovan Government reoriented its foreign policy to the West and owing primarily to the fact that Moldova’s integration into the EU was named as strategic objective by the consensus of all the parliamentary parties, including PCRM, which did not have a clear position on this topic until 2005. In Chisinau, this period started at a time when Moldova’s relations with Russia became to worsen after the Kozak Memorandum failed, also under the pressure of the colored revolutions in Tbilisi (2003) and Kiev (2004) and, especially, in the context of the electoral campaign for the 2005 parliamentary elections. All these factors made President Vladimir Voronin choose to be open and make a bigger commitment to the EU, NATO and, of course, Romania so as to insure a new victory of his party (PCRM) in the 2005 legislative elections. On the back of the declared pragmatism, Romania’s President Traian Basescu and Moldova’s President Vladimir Voronin established a strong, but short-term personal relation that became an incentive in the Moldovan-Romanian relations. In fact, the bilateral cooperation became markedly personalized to the detriment of institutionalization on the vertical and horizontal. The new openness encouraged Romania to announce its intention to play a more active role in the settlement of the Transnistrian dispute. The Romanian authorities even intended to propose their own conflict solving project. Bucharest also proposed Chisinau to act as Moldova’s advocate in the EU. But Romania’s offers did not arouse enthusiasm among the Moldovan decision makers. Moreover, shortly afterward, the notion of pragmatism began to be interpreted differently in Bucharest and Chisinau. While Bucharest considered that the two states can become part of the EU if promoting the idea of “one people and two Romanian states”, Chisinau promoted the idea of “two peoples and two different states”. As to the Transnistrian conflict, Romania wanted a more active involvement in the process of finding a political solution at talks, but the Moldovan authorities proposed Romania a passive role, namely to help solve the dispute by signing the two agreements: the Basic Political Treaty and the Agreement on the Border between Moldova and Romania. Romania’s and Moldova’s positions on the Basic Political Treaty and Border Agreement also showed that the two countries interpret the notion of pragmatism totally differently. Bucharest considered that the Basic Political Treaty should establish a European Partnership with Chisinau and confirm Romania’s status of Moldova’s advocate on the path to European integration, but the official Chisinau wanted to sign an ordinary Partnership and Cooperation Agreement that would not only ignore the historical, ethnical and linguistic links between Moldova and Romania, but will also make reference to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, which was considered a landmark of the past by the Romanian politicians and a shield against the Romanian irredentism by the Moldovan governors. The same divergence of opinions was evident in the case of the Border Treaty. Chisinau wanted an agreement that would make reference to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, meaning an agreement with political implications, but Bucharest was disposed to sign a purely technical Border Agreement that would regulate the interaction between the authorities of the two states within the Moldovan-Romanian border. All these contradictions led to the derailment of the pragmatic cooperation in the period between 2005 and 2006. The populist statement made by President Basescu in July 2006, when he announced that he proposed President Voronin that Romania and Moldova should simultaneously join the EU, was in fact the moment that fully revealed the contradictions of vision existing between Bucharest and Chisinau. The official visit to Chisinau made by the Romanian Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu on July 7, 2008 marked the beginning of [the fourth period of Moldovan-Romanian pragmatism,] which seems to have at the core the support for Moldova on the path to European integration. It is true that Minister Comanescu’s visit to Chisinau reanimated the diplomatic dialogue between Bucharest and Chisinau that reached deadlock in December 2007, after the Moldovan authorities expelled two Romanian diplomats from Moldova and declared them personae non-gratae. But it is also true that the political dialogue between the Heads of State, Parliaments and Executives remains blocked and the relaunch will also depend on the results of the meeting of the joint Moldovan-Romanian commission for economic cooperation and European integration set to take place in the first half of September this year. At the same time, while Minister Comanescu was in Moldova, wanting probably to prove pragmatic spirit, President Vladimir Voronin offered Romania to open Romanian consular offices in Cahul and Balti and Moldovan consular offices in Iasi and Constanta. But, the Moldovan authorities said the consular offices would be opened and the Convention on Small-Scale Border Traffic signed only after the signing of the Agreement on the Moldovan-Romanian Border. As the Romanian Foreign Ministry said in a communiqué, the meetings that Minister Lazar Comanescu had in Chisinau with President Vladimir Voronin and Foreign Minister Andrei Stratan showed the importance and the two sides’ willingness to continue the efforts to finalize the Treaty on the State Border Regime and the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Romania and Moldova. As President Voronin announced himself at a news conference on July 23, the sides made certain progress in negotiating the two agreements. Chisinau for instance renounced the idea that the two agreements should make reference to the Moldovan language and to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, which, in the opinion of the Moldovan Government, should have been at the basis of the preservation of the inviolability of the border between Moldova and Romania. However, it seems that Bucharest and Chisinau have not yet reached a compromise over the name of the two agreements and this shows that the content of the two documents is not yet clear. This presumption does not lack content because Bucharest considers that the future Basic Political Treaty with Chisinau should confirm the historical, ethnic and linguistic ties existing between Romania and Moldova and establish a European Partnership with Chisinau. Yet, the Moldovan Government considers that the Basic Political Treaty and the Border Agreement should first of all set out the distinctiveness of Moldova and its people from Romania. It is evident that the pragmatism of the present Moldovan Government depends of the signing of the Basic Political Treaty and the Border Agreement with Romania. The official Chisinau’s position runs counter to Bucharest’s position expressed by Minister Comanescu while in Moldova on a visit. According to the Romanian Foreign Minister, the development of the Moldovan-Romanian relations should not depend on the progress made in negotiating the two agreements because the political-legal framework existing between Moldova and the EU enables to improve Moldova’s relations with Romania, which became a member of the EU in January 2007, at all the levels. [Is the notion of pragmatism still credible in the Moldovan-Romanian relations?] Taking all these discordance elements existing between Chisinau and Bucharest into account, it would be rational to wonder whether the new emerging period of pragmatism and the notion of pragmatism can to bring the cooperation relations between Moldova and Romania to a normal, stable and predictable development. Despite the multiple discords and divergence of opinions between Chisinau and Bucharest as regards the development of the bilateral relations, the answer to the abovementioned question would be optimistic. Of course, the new fragile start of the period of pragmatism and the notion of pragmatism can be successful, but their materialization is directly proportional to the two sides’ capacity to formulate in agreement a Joint Strategy for Developing the Partnership Relations between Moldova and Romania, which would be based on mutually agreed principles and objectives. Among the objectives and principles that the two states can use to develop the bilateral cooperation could be: - to move the discussions on historical and identity-linguistic topics from the political sphere to the area of scientific debates; - to refrain from rhetoric and home and foreign policy actions that can undermine the stable development of the Moldovan-Romanian relations; - to stimulate the economic cooperation by launching joint infrastructure-related projects in such areas as energy security, environment, agriculture, transport and telecommunications. In the area of transport, to build a railway with European gauge that would connect Moldova to Romania and the EU and would undoubtedly be a good start; - to declare the Moldovan-Romanian transfrontier territory as European crossborder cooperation space that would be the target for joint infrastructure projects financed from the EU Structural Funds; - to give up imposing conditions in the Moldovan-Romanian relations because the realities show that the relations between the two states will not improve if the Moldovan authorities say they will sign agreements on certain conditions; - to center the bilateral cooperation on the idea that Moldova should prepare for an eventual accession into the EU. To make such cooperation possible and credible, Romania’s messages and attitude towards Moldova should be as close as possible to those of the EU. Only this way, the political forces in Moldova, which are still dominated by historical frustrations and prejudice against Romania, will have fewer reasons and pretexts to question Romanian authorities’ sincerity, accuse Romania of interference in Moldova’s internal affairs or suspect it of irredentism; - the signing of the Basic Political Treaty and Border Agreement should center on the facilitation of the development of a long-term European Partnership between Moldova and Romania. Of course, the two agreements should take into account the susceptibilities of the main political players in Bucharest and Chisinau on which their ratification depends; - Bucharest and Chisinau should contribute to an improved joint expertise as regards the development of the bilateral relations. A solution would be to set up a joint center for strategic studies that would give impartial advice to both of the governments.