Mihai Moscovici

On Sunday, an American said me that the main motivation of founder-fathers of the USA, about writing the second amendment in the American Bill of Rights (the right to keep and bear arms) was that people would protect themselves from a bad government. One of the first things a bad government does, it forbids people to have arms.
Is this motivation true for our days too?

There are 18 months passed since the Action Plan EU-Moldova has been signed. On a half of the way, the European Union evaluates Moldova.

Minuses
- the business climate;
- reforms related to the freedom of press;
- reforming the judicial system;
- fighting corruption.

Pluses
+ the situation at the Ukrainian border;
+ creation of the EU border assistance mission;
+ negotiation of the asymmetric trade system and of the GSP;
+ renewing the financial program with IMF (which determined other international bodies to aid Moldova).
4 pluses vs 4 minuses

Also, European Union will finance Moldova within the frameworks of the Good Neighborhood Program for 2007-2013. The total budget of the program planned for 16 neighbor countries of EU amounts to EUR 12 billion.
Cesare de Monstis, the Head of the European Commission to Moldova, said that the European Commission hopes that Moldova will obtain the second biggest part after Palestine. [via]
Photo: l’Union européenne / jdunlevy

It seems Moldova will come back into Russian “arms”. But probably Moldova never left Russian “arms” and the pro-European policy was just a trick of the Moldovan Communist party in order to be re-elected in March 2005.
First, Putin used the recent CIS summit in Minsk to make his declaration about lifting the ban on wine and meat imports from Moldova, then he agreed to resume discussions on the situation around Transnistria, a breakaway region in Moldova.
What are the causes that changed Putin’s view over Moldova? Certainly, Moldova made several regressions in its policy toward Russia and is trying to run away from the advices of the European Union and the US.
Second, Moldova and Russia still cannot agree over the price for gas in 2007. However, the agreement will be made as soon as Russia will become the primary orientation of the Moldovan foreign policy.
Now, the question is, “Will Moldova become the second Belarus in Europe?”

Later add: Here is the secret deal - Moldova accepts Russia to become a member of the WTO; in change, Russia lifts the ban for Moldovan wine to its market.

Photo: Globalicious! / rogiro