German chancellor Angela Merkel has praised judicial reforms in Macedonia as well as steps to improve transparency and resolve the former Yugoslav republic’s name dispute with Greece.
“In the last ten years, the solution has not been as close as now and it would be wonderful if the remaining difficulties can be bridged,” she said during a news conference with her Macedonian counterpart, Zoran Zaev.
It would, but the dispute with Greece is only one of the many obstacles to the Balkan nation’s EU accession.
The EU has nevertheless set a target date of 2025 for the remaining states of the Western Balkans to join, fearing that otherwise Russia might take advantage. (more…)
Unlike my colleague and friend Irina Staver, my culture and native language are not Romanian. I am an expatriate living in the neighboring Republic of Moldova, a country with close cultural and historical ties to Romania.
Yet I have observed with great interest the parallel evolutions of these two countries. A number of similarities thus spring to mind, so that I might be able to draw from the current Romanian context a few lessons for Moldova. (more…)
As an active political journalist in the Republic of Moldova, I have been closely following the street protests in neighboring Romania, which are the largest of its kind since the fall of communism.
I was born after the Revolution of 1989, so I can’t know what that movement must have felt like. What I do know is that Romanians united then to bring down the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu and they are rallying now to rid themselves of another “red plague”, namely the Social Democratic Party.
The largest in the country, the party currently rules in coalition with the center-right liberals. One of the first acts of this new government when it came to power in January was to pardon non-violent offenders and decriminalize low-level abuses of office in cases where the damages were less than 200,000 leu, or €44,000.
The measures would have made a mockery of anti-corruption efforts in the EU member state. (more…)
The tale of 2016-17 has been of anti-neoliberal populists hijacking great parties and great states, forcing policy change down the throats of elites who believed they had arrived at a permanent consensus. They have largely been the harbinger of an uglier form of politics, giving breath to nationalists, racists and irrational bigotry that are a strain on the powers of their states.
Romania is not immune to the winds of populism. But unlike the rest of the European Union, here the rising is by those who are demanding more rational, more efficient government. It is still populism, but without the ugliness.
Since February 1, Romanians have been braving frigid winter temperatures to call for the resignation of their two-months old government. For their new government is up to the tricks of their old one and for many Romanians that is a bridge too far. (more…)
American president Barack Obama speaks with Australian foreign minister Bob Carr as Russian president Vladimir Putin opens a plenary session of the G20 in Saint Petersburg, September 6, 2013 (White House/Pete Souza)
During the past year, the primary focus of the American-Russian rivalry has centred around Iran. The United States put an end to Western sanctions against Iran and also chose to keep American troops in Afghanistan, who support, among others, many of the tens of millions of Afghans who are Shiite Muslims or who can speak Farsi (as opposed to the Taliban, who are Sunni and typically Pashto-speaking). Russia, meanwhile, intervened to aid Bashar al-Assad in Syria, whose survival diverts Sunni attention away from Iran’s Shiite allies in Iraq.
With Russia now withdrawing most of its forces from Syria and the United States hoping to do so from Afghanistan, the focus of the American-Russian rivalry could revert, perhaps, to Ukraine. By comparison to the Middle East, Ukraine has appeared to be quite quiet of late.
Russia may have dialed back the conflict there partly in order to shift the West’s focus to the Middle East. This of course has not been very difficult to accomplish, given Europe’s influx of Syrian migrants and America’s election-season rhetoric on issues like ISIS, the conflict in Libya and Donald Trump’s proposal to ban, for an unspecified amount of time, all Muslims from traveling to the United States.
If the American-Russian focus does move back toward Eastern Europe, one can perhaps guess the rough outlines of any geopolitical contest that may occur there. (more…)
Recent discoveries of natural gas deposits have become a disputed issue in Romania. After years of economic slowdown following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many look to the discovery of energy resources as a potential economic boom. Others are hesitant to embrace the news. Critics are concerned about the possible environmental ramifications of such a discovery, specifically in regard to the use of the controversial extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing.
A large percentage of Romania’s energy currently comes from neighboring Russia. Those supportive of domestic gas drilling see this as a means to push the nation toward energy independence. (more…)
