Moldova’s attitude towards CIS questions foreign policy consistency, experts

Alongside the enlargement fatigue observed inside the EU, Moldova’s foreign policy shows evident disappointment in the West and enthusiasm to revitalise the Commonwealth of Independent States, consider authors of the study “100 most pressing problems of Moldova in 2007”. According to them, this tendency was obvious at the Informal CIS Summit that took place in Saint Petersburg on June 10, 2007 as well as in the speech delivered by President Vladimir Voronin at the anniversary session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly where he pleaded for the reformation and revitalisation of the Commonwealth. Experts say that the economic composition of the CIS could be invoked until the price of energy resources was increased and Russia started the “commercial war” against the Moldovan products, but after Russia banned the import of Moldovan wine and announced its intention to raise the price of energy resources up to the average European price, Moldova’s intention to remain in the CIS does not have many justifications. Moreover, this attitude questions the consistency of Moldova’s foreign policy. Russia will continue using the CIS to expand its influence in the post-Soviet states, especially in the context of the presidential elections in Russia. Under such circumstances, the operation “reanimation of the CIS” is more of internal use. Given that 2008 will be a pre-electoral year in Moldova, the Parliament could become an arena of debates on the advantages and losses sustained by Moldova while a CIS member, the authors predict. At the same time, they say that though Moldova declared the integration into the EU as its objective, it does not have a corresponding resolute position.