BUCHAREST—The landslide victory of former speaker of the Parliament Yevgeny Shevchuk in the December 25 Transnistrian presidential elections came as a surprise to observers in Moldova, Russia, and the West. Shevchuk, who won 74 percent of the vote in the run-off, overcame the challenges of the Moscow-backed candidate Anatoly Kaminski and the incumbent of 20 [...]

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CHISINAU/KIEV/TBILISI—Western politicians and policymakers were already looking overwhelmed before the nuclear catastrophe in Japan and the upheavals across the Middle East hit them. Why on earth should they bother with Eastern Europe now, that forlorn and troubled backwater arcing from Belarus to the Caucasus? The forces pulling and tugging at the West today are indeed [...]

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BUCHAREST — Sometimes, democratic progress can be gauged with a ruler. Last Sunday in Moldova, it measured exactly 94.5 centimeters or almost 37 inches—the length of the ballot paper Moldovan voters were issued when they went to the polls for the third time in the last 19 months to elect a parliament. A total of [...]

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BUCHAREST — Last week, democracy was put to a test in Moldova. The country’s citizens went to the polls on September 5 to vote on a referendum to amend Article 78 of the Constitution so that the president could be elected directly by the people. The referendum had been triggered by the failure—twice—of the Parliament [...]

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BUCHAREST — On Sunday, Sept. 5, Moldovans will go to the polls to participate in a Constitutional referendum that would allow for the president to be elected directly by the people, and not by the parliament as it is now. The need to change Article 78 of the Constitution was triggered by the failure twice [...]

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BUCHAREST — On June 5, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a brief but significant memorandum on a joint EU-Russia Committee on Security and Foreign Policy (ERPSC) in the German town of Meseberg. The document proposes to “explore” the creation of a ministerial-level committee to be chaired by the EU High [...]

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WASHINGTON – In his new national security strategy, Barack Obama defined his tenure as a transitional presidency that will leave Cold War thinking behind in order to adjust U.S. policy to the realities of a multipolar world. But as far as Russia is concerned, not everyone seems to be convinced that the Cold War really [...]

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WASHINGTON — Exactly a year ago, Moldova was a mess.   Two days after parliamentary elections, on April 7, 2009, initial results showed the Communist Party with a lead big enough to maintain control over the legislature and government, if not the presidency.   In a country where freedom of expression had become an ideal, [...]

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WASHINGTON — Ask most Americans and Europeans to identify Vladimir Filat or find Moldova on a map and you’re likely to get a blank stare. Both, however, are worth getting to know. Filat is the new prime minister of Moldova, a small country of four million people that emerged from the break-up of the Soviet [...]

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WASHINGTON, DC — On the eve of this week’s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO Ministerial meetings, in addition to a NATO-Russia Council gathering, Russian officials unveiled their long-awaited proposal for a new European Security Treaty.   The Medvedev proposal, as it has become known, has been the subject of considerable [...]

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