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Members of an electoral commission count votes after polling stations closed in the course of Moldova's presidential election and a referendum on joining the European Union, in Chisinau, Moldova October 20, 2024.
Moldova votes amid allegations of Russian meddling
Moldovans voted in a presidential election and a referendum on European integration on Sunday. President Maia Sandu cruised into the second round runoff with 42% of the vote as she seeks reelection with a pro-EU platform against 10 rivals, many of whom favor closer ties to Russia. The referendum, which would enshrine Moldova’s EU ambitions into its constitution, looks like it will pass with the slimmest of margins: a 50.17% majority.
A former Soviet state of roughly 3 million people that gained independence in 1991, Moldova sits landlocked between Ukraine and Romania and has been tugged between Eastern and Western influences ever since. One of Europe’s poorest nations, it is also bordered by Transnistria, a breakaway region along the Dnister River that declared independence in 1990, fearing Moldova’s potential reunification with Romania. Moscow maintains troops there, making the threat of Russian military action a constant concern.
Most recently, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Moldova to announce a $2 billion economic support package from the EU and Washington. At the same time, fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, now living in Russia, is accused of undermining Sandu’s EU ambitions by funneling millions in cash to her opponents, much of which has been seized by authorities. Sandu said there was “clear evidence” of “fraud on an unprecedented scale.”
Sandu now faces a run-off against pro-Russian candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo on Nov. 3. As for the referendum, it will pass if its tight margin holds, but it is far from the resounding endorsement of EU admission that Sandu would prefer going into the runoff.
EU Summit focuses on migration crisis
What is the Russian stake in the EU referendum in Moldova? What was the main outcome of the EU Summit last week? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from London.
What is the Russian stake in the EU referendum in Moldova?
Well, the Russians are intending quite clearly to try to secure a "no" in that particular referendum. They're throwing money at it. They are trying to bribe voters. They are having an information campaign. So it's fairly obvious that their enthusiasm for the European aspirations of Moldova are fairly limited. We'll see how that turns out. There's also presidential election, but their sitting President Maia Sandu is highly likely to be re-elected.
What was the main outcome of the EU Summit last week?
It was migration, migration, migration. That is the issue that is dominating the politics in quite a number of European countries. And fairly obviously, it requires European solution. There have been agreements on the migration pact, not yet implemented fully. But clearly there's urge for further measures to sort of have a higher fence if possible. That's easier said than done. But also measures to send back to different countries the people who have no right to stay in Europe. So, Europe needs a higher fence, yes, that was the conclusion. But Europe also needs, as a matter of fact, a door, a fairly big door, because we have a demographic situation, a declining working age force in the years and in the decades ahead. So it's a huge issue. It's one difficult to balance, but clearly dominated the EU Summit.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Moldova's President Maia Sandu and President of the European Council Charles Michel attend a joint press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine November 21, 2023.
Europe flirts with the East but won’t yet commit
The European Union has expanded to the East in recent years, but some would-be members remain in line to join the club.
On Tuesday, Ukraine and Moldova finally began talks to join the European Union after applying for membership within weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. (Ironically, it was Ukrainian protests over their president’s failure to sign a trade agreement with Europe that triggered the uprising that led Vladimir Putin to invade Crimea in 2014.)
Eager to encourage them, the EU has “fast-tracked” their processes, but aligning with the union’s dozens of policy requirements takes time. (Just ask Turkey, now entering its 20th year of talks.) Ukraine must also contend with efforts by Hungary’s government, Russia’s best European friend, to block Kyiv’s bid to join both the EU and NATO.
But the EU isn’t the only club open for new memberships. The eurozone, a monetary union comprised of 20 member states, told EU members Bulgaria and Romania they haven’t yet cleared the hurdles needed to adopt the euro. Bulgaria is close; of all the needed economic criteria, its high inflation is the only remaining barrier to entry. Romania must do much more to tame inflation, bribery, money laundering, and Russian influence on its policymaking.
Ukraine shows success with long-range drone attacks against Russia
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
How is Ukraine doing in the war?
Well, they seem to be making incremental gains on the ground in the south of Ukraine against the Russian occupation forces. But most spectacular, of course, have been the successes they've had with long-range drone attacks in big numbers, where they have been successful in attacking Russian air bases 700 kilometers away from the territory of Ukraine, causing significant damage to significant Russian assets. That's a new dimension of the war. And it shows that Ukraine has the ability to develop new technology on its own, independent of the very important support that they're getting from Europe and from the United States.
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Photo composite of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping
What We’re Watching: China’s budding diplomacy, Biden’s border control, Russia’s big plans
What’s next for Russia & China?
Russia and China broadcast their friendship to the world on Wednesday as the West freaked out about the possibility of Beijing turning to arm Moscow’s troops in Ukraine. After meeting Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin said that strong Russia-China ties are “important for stabilizing the international situation.” (A tad rich coming from the guy who upended geopolitics by invading Ukraine a year ago.) Putin also confirmed that Xi Jinping would visit Moscow for a summit in the coming months. Wang, for his part, clarified that while their famous partnership “without limits” is not directed against any other nation, it certainly should not be subject to external pressure. He said both countries support “multipolarity and democratization of international relations” – in other words, not a US-led liberal international order. Still, no matter what Western governments say, the Chinese are not so willing to break ties with the US and its allies, mainly because Beijing's trade relations are too important. Meanwhile, we wonder whether the current status of the Russia-China relationship — friends with benefits but complicated — will blossom into a marriage (of convenience) or end in a bad breakup. What we know for sure is that China is getting more involved in the Ukraine conflict generally. Learn more here.
Biden’s tough new move on immigration
The Biden administration this week unveiled a new hardline immigration plan that will likely come into effect after the current pandemic-era immigration policy, known as Title 42, lapses on May 11. It would then stay in place for two years. Under the measure, first revealed last month, asylum-seekers who cross the US southern border illegally or who fail to apply for asylum in the first country they cross through will be banned from applying for asylum in America. This comes after Biden’s team last month introduced a new policy, whereby migrants from Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, in addition to Venezuela, would be eligible for “parole” – meaning temporary two-year work visas – only if they apply for asylum from outside the US and if they have a US sponsor. The new plan mirrors a similar policy introduced by former President Donald Trump that was ultimately blocked by the courts. Rights groups, citing a potential threat to humanitarian protections, say they will seek legal action again. Biden has been struggling to contain an uptick in migrants arriving at the southern border in recent months – and the subsequent political backlash. But this plan will infuriate the left flank of the Democratic Party whose support Biden needs as the 2024 presidential race gets underway.
Russia looks beyond Ukraine?
Ukraine is not the only piece of former Soviet ground that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin might like to recapture. Belarus, allied with Russia as part of a “union state” since 1999, has seen Kremlin influence within its borders grow since strongman President Aleksandr Lukashenko called on Putin for help with domestic protests that broke out in response to a rigged 2020 election. Lukashenko has so far resisted pressure from Putin to commit Belarusian troops to the war in Ukraine, but he has allowed Russia to use his country as a staging ground for invasion. This week, a consortium of journalists representing Yahoo News, Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, and other media organizations published a document they say was obtained from inside Putin’s government that details a Russian plan to essentially annex Belarus by 2030. The 17-page report, titled "Strategic Goals of the Russian Federation in Belarus" and completed in the summer of 2021, calls for Russian infiltration of Belarus’ politics, economy, and military. Like Ukraine, Belarus is situated on land that has sometimes been ruled by Moscow, and it serves as a forward buffer against further NATO advance toward Russian borders. It’s also consistent with a Kremlin announcement this week that created uncertainty over Russian recognition of the independence of Moldova, another former Soviet Republic. Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky recently alleged a Russian plan to organize a coup in Moldova.
Ukraine & Moldova are on the path to EU membership
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Hostomel Airport, just outside of Kyiv.
What's going to be the impact of the EU decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidate countries?
Well, it is a momentous decision because it opens the door for EU membership, something that quite a number of the EU member states have been reluctant to discuss previously, because they considered rightly to be such an enormous undertaking for the future, that it would be sort of too much for the European Union to be able to do in the years ahead. But now that decision will be taken, and that is something that will shape policies for quite some time to come. There's no guarantee. Things can go wrong in the meantime. Turkey is an example of that. And it's a long slog ahead to align with all of the policies and the practices of the European Union in the years ahead. Part of that has already been done with the free trade agreement, the DCFTA, that was after some controversy, to put it very mildly, signed in 2014, but now the door will be open and the road to EU membership will begin. But before that, need to say, the war that was begun here at this very spot, will have to be won. And we are very far from that as of yet.
Ukrainian kids celebrate International Children's Day In Krakow, Poland.
War, reforms & bureaucracy will decide Ukraine’s EU bid
It’s at war for its survival, yet Ukraine’s candidacy for European Union membership has just been endorsed. While success would be a game-changer for Kyiv, getting there won’t be easy, given the required internal reforms, international bureaucracy, and shifting geopolitics.
The European Commission is clear that Ukraine must carry out serious reforms to join the bloc, but some tough questions need to be answered. Does Ukraine deserve to be an EU member? What about the stringent process and requirements? Is there a natural tie-in to NATO membership? And what are the politics at play, given that Moldova, another former Soviet republic Russia considers to be in its sphere of influence, has been approved, while Georgia has not.
Does Ukraine deserve EU membership? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the announcement from Brussels, tweeting that it’s “the 1st step on the EU membership path that’ll certainly bring our Victory closer.”
But connecting Kyiv’s bid for membership to the war isn’t just a Zelensky-era policy; Ukrainians have long noted that they have paid with their lives for their European aspirations, which helped trigger Russia’s intervention in Ukrainian-controlled territory in 2014. Even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has acknowledged that Ukrainians are “ready to die” for their pan-European objectives.
What are the processes and requirements? Candidacy is the first seal of approval for membership, but certainly not the last, and it’s no guarantee of success. What is guaranteed, however, is a lot of bureaucracy. In a process that may take a decade — Finland was the quickest to get EU membership in under three years, while Cyprus was the slowest at almost 14 years — final approval must be agreed to unanimously by all 27 member states.
Negotiations involve some serious heavy lifting. Brussels premises membership on several conditions that will require massive judicial and governance overhauls in Kyiv. The big ones are:
- An independent judiciary
- An effective anti-corruption campaign
- Free media laws
- Curbing influential oligarchs
- Laws against money-laundering
- Protection of minorities
These conditions are further split into specific “chapters” of reform — and every chapter will have its own monitoring and assessment phase, the completion of which will also require unanimous approval.
“Successful applicants generally have to deal with issues like corruption and the rule of law, media freedom, and oligarchism,” says Jason Bush, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group. “And although, of course, there's a lot of international sympathy with Ukraine at the moment, these problems are endemic in Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s post-Soviet-era systemic flaws — premised mostly on the oversized and often corrupt links between political and business interests in government and the judiciary, are not easily corrected. The country is currently under martial law, which means no elections or free media, while the war is ongoing.
“It’s not a perfect democracy either,” says Bush, claiming that there are issues with political competition, and Zelensky, as a wartime president, can easily, for example, issue a decree against a pro-Russia party, which would create the question of political competition — a crucial yardstick for EU membership,
There is also the thorny issue of migration, which doesn’t resonate well in many parts of the EU.
“Do people really want to give free movement of labor to, you know, 50 million Ukrainians? Migration from Eastern Europe has been a source of political tension in many European countries. It's one of the factors that Brexit brings up,” says Bush. Considering Ukraine’s huge population and relative poverty compared to the other parts of the continent, opening up Europe’s borders is a “serious political obstacle” because of the economic cost of integration.
As for reforms, although it’s unrealistic for Kyiv to implement reforms before hostilities cease, Ukraine has already managed to adopt and implement almost 70% of the EU’s laws — aka the acquis — since signing a bevy of political and trade agreements with Brussels in 2014.
Is EU membership tied to NATO? Remember, Russia’s red line is Ukraine joining NATO. Twenty-one of the EU’s 27 member states are in NATO (with new aspirants Finland and Sweden, that’ll be 23). Put simply, some NATO members are EU members, but most EU members are in NATO.
While Zelensky has walked back its intentions of joining NATO, NATO leaders met on the same day the European Commission announced Kyiv’s EU candidacy to discuss further integrating Ukraine into NATO’s ambit. They announced a comprehensive assistance package to improve Ukraine’s interoperability with NATO forces by transitioning it from Soviet-era to modern NATO weaponry. Ukraine may not be a member but is surely being armed like one.
Moreover, the EU now openly coordinates with NATO for tackling threats, from cybersecurity to disinformation, but pursues cooperation on military mobility so that “NATO forces can cross borders faster and more easily when needed.” Importantly, even discounting the all-for-one-and-one-for-all joint defense agreement in NATO’s Article 5, the latest EU and NATO agreements mean that Ukraine doesn’t have to be a NATO member to enjoy NATO benefits, especially if it becomes an EU member.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow didn’t have a problem with Ukraine’s economic integration with Europe, but that it’s concerned about its territory being used for military purposes by Europe.
“The Russians are obsessed with NATO's expansion and NATO membership [for Ukraine],” says Bush. “Right now, It doesn't look like they are regarding joining the EU in the same way … But, you know, what else can Russia do? It's already invaded.”
Continental politics. The fact that the EU’s big three — Germany, France, and Italy — were in Kyiv a day before the EU announced Kyiv’s candidacy, with the oft-skeptical Dutch also making encouraging noises, means that the EU’s naysayers and the expansionists are getting over their differences.
But Moldova and Georgia — two former Soviet states that applied for EU membership soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, fearing they might be Putin’s next targets — saw mixed results. Moldova was granted candidacy — “a direct shot across Russia’s bow,” according to Ian Bremmer — but not Georgia. How were these decisions made?
According to Bush, Moldova’s closer connection to the war in Ukraine — some believe the Russians plan to advance and link up with the breakaway region of Transnistria — makes it a more likely EU candidate, compared to Georgia.
“The fear that Moldova is potentially a Russian target is making the EU more, not less, determined to publicly offer this support,” says Bush. Thus, the ongoing geopolitical shifts in Eastern Europe clearly weigh into the EU’s calculus, in addition to domestic politics in those countries. The fact that Georgia’s democratic record is more tarnished than Moldova’s doesn’t help its case either, he added.
Ukraine’s bid for candidacy needs a unanimous vote by the European Council on June 23-24 to move forward. Given the current sympathies for the country, it will probably go through. But the larger question is how long it'll take.
In the unwieldy structure of the EU, fates linger and issues simmer. Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey are all membership candidates but have everything from bilateral disputes (such as North Macedonia vs. EU member state Bulgaria) to autocratic leadership (like Turkey) slowing their applications.
Turkey’s membership complications are a yardstick for the political hurdles to come. Granted candidacy in 1999, Ankara began accession talks in 2005. But since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s estrangement from the West, the process has been dead in the water.
Naturally, the path is going to be different for Ukraine, a contemporary darling of the West. But with its complicated and corrupt internal dynamics, compounded by the ongoing war, Europe’s attitude towards immigration and an incoming recession, the road between Kyiv and Brussels looks long and arduous.
Additional reporting by Beatrice Catena.
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Sri Lankan workers protest in front of the president's office at Colombo.
What We’re Watching: Sri Lanka on strike, trouble in Transnistria, Salvadorans back Bukele
Sri Lankans strike to get president out
Virtually all business activity in Sri Lanka ground to a halt on Thursday, as workers went on a nationwide strike to demand the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. For weeks, Sri Lankans have been protesting amid the country’s growing economic and political crisis. Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy, having already defaulted on its sovereign debt and depleted its foreign currency reserves used for food and fuel purchases. Officials have been trying to get some relief from China and the International Monetary Fund, but Beijing will only refinance, and the IMF requires deep economic reforms. Meanwhile, trade unions say they'll strike permanently if Rajapaksa doesn't step down by May 6. The president is willing to appoint a new interim government and even drop his brother Mahinda as PM, but Mahinda himself has refused to resign. The opposition, which is close to getting a no-confidence vote to remove both Rajapaksas, hopes to appease Sri Lankans who have lost faith in their political leadership.
The war spills across Ukraine’s borders
“We either back the Ukrainian people as they defend their country or we stand by as the Russians continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine,” President Joe Biden said Thursday, noting that he’s seeking an additional $33 billion from Congress to bolster Ukraine’s defense. This comes at a moment when the war appears to be spilling across borders. Start with Transnistria, a sliver of land between Moldova and southwestern Ukraine roughly the size of Rhode Island. Russia says it’s an independent republic; Moldova says it’s land Russia stole 30 years ago. As in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Moscow claims that Russian speakers in Transnistria are threatened and deserve “protection.” That’s why mysterious explosions there this week have set teeth on edge. Is Ukraine or Moldova attacking Transnistria? The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, says it’s more likely Moscow is preparing a “false-flag attack,” an incident staged to justify the opening of a new front in Russia’s war. But there were also reported explosions this week in the Russian cities of Belgorod and Voronezh that may have been the work of Ukrainian drones or missiles. A coy Ukrainian official blamed “karma” before adding that Russian cities can’t expect to “sit out” the war. Both stories are worth watching in the coming days.