It is very difficult to talk a dictatorship into behaving nicely. The only way is for the regime to be somehow constrained, to be made aware that there are consequences for its behavior. The most common method is that of sanctions; the problem is that dictatorships can have a fairly high tolerance for them.
The NATO Summit in Brussels, to be held on June 14, has rekindled talks regarding Ukraine’s accession to the North-Atlantic Treaty Alliance. While the accession is being discussed overtly in Kiev, many states remain adamant.
Moldovan citizens often call their country “Wonderland”. Obviously, they do it pejoratively, and the election campaign for the snap parliamentary elections due on July 11th seems to be another reason to call it that. In the past week, there’s been an outcry in the entire Moldovan media about a so-called disclosure made by a controversial police officer.
After 11 days of fighting, Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire agreement that solves nothing: it’s just a short break until the new round of clashes beings.
After tensions in the 1990s and the war in Kosovo, Belgrade's relations with NATO have fundamentally improved, as Serbia has sought to break out of the isolation of the Milosevic era. The partnership with NATO is a constant in Serbia's policy, but the relationship is only partially assumed: the authorities emphasize the country's neutrality, the media focuses on the much weaker cooperation with Russia, and the population sees no gain in a possible NATO integration.
Russian claims that EU and the USA are allegedly interfering in the parliamentary election in Chișinău, scheduled for July 11. On May 13, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said “it is regrettable to see the growing interference of the United States and EU countries in the domestic politics of the Republic of Moldova, something which we firmly condemn”.
Bulgaria braces for new parliamentary elections on July 11 which fuels the unpredictability in the country’s political life and raises several questions - will GERB return stronger or weaker, will popular singer and talk show host Slavi Trifonov continue his political rise after being a runner-up in the April elections, will the far-right see a resurgence after surprisingly low results? While politicians are trying to find some common ground, Bulgaria’s slow vaccination rollout, the still present COVID-19 pandemic, EU’s Green Deal and the previous government’s spending all remain unaddressed.
The concentration of Russian troops near the borders of Ukraine, which began in late March 2021, was accompanied by what seemed to be an information-psychological operation to dehumanize the enemy. Despite the reduction of tensions after a number of events in the international arena, that technology deserves detailed analysis.
Hungary’s plans to become a hub for eastern superpowers were widely mocked after Viktor Orban’s government’s “Eastern Wind” policy had to be renamed “Eastern Opening” after a party official noted that an eastern wind blows things everywhere except to the east. That hilarity turned to anger, however, when it emerged that China plans to build its first ever European university on the banks of the Danube by way of a EUR 1.5bn construction project that will be funded by Hungarian taxpayers.
Making predictions before elections in the Republic of Moldova means hazarding a guess. Such an action requires not only knowledge and intuition, but also a lot of luck and a special flair for anticipating last-minute backstage arrangements. However, the campaign for the snap parliamentary elections due on July 11 has kicked off, and based on current data and trends, we will analyze who the actors are and what chances they stand at the moment. A dirty election campaign is announced from the left wing, which seems ready to bring into play resources that are incomparable to those available to the right.
In the Republic of Moldova, where half the population wants to join the European Union and the other half the Eurasian Union, where the number of supporters of the union with Romania is increasing, but that of the USSR nostalgics does not seem to decrease, where unionist marches would still end in confrontations a few years ago, May 9th could not but be a new bone of contention for politicians, and also a reason for debate in society, especially since much of that society was educated in the Soviet spirit of the significance of this date.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, set to transport Russian gas straight to Germany, seems to have hit a few snags amidst growing opposition. Even if it does get finalized, Nord Stream 2 could prove useless due to Europe’s transition to alternative energy sources.
In a little over four years, Russia has become increasingly belligerent towards the West, hitting a new milestone, which is interesting, to put it mildly: three hundred and eleven (!) Russian diplomats have been expelled from the United States and Europe due to their actions in these states.
The Czech Republic has announced that it is expelling 18 Russian diplomats, following the sabotage of an ammunition depot by Moscow’s agents. The measure seems to have been taken without consulting all the domestic key players or Prague’s Western partners: in the days that followed, both the lack of cohesion of the state authorities and the hesitations of external partners to show solidarity were apparent.
A religious movement in Poland, with ties in Brazil and ramifications within the Warsaw administration, is behind a drive to impose an ultra-conservative agenda in Catholic countries in the EU.
For a brief moment Russia looked like it was going to war with Ukraine, rallying a significant number of forces on the Ukrainian border, in Crimea and the Black Sea. The crisis has passed, momentarily, but the many critical problems in the region remain unsolved.
Former president Igor Dodon, the current leader of the Party of Socialists in the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), the largest party in the Moldovan Parliament, seems determined to cling to power, much like his predecessors. It was only a matter of time before Dodon moved from theory to practice. Therefore, at the end of last week, while on a visit to Moscow, Dodon mounted a fierce attack on the rule of law, namely on the Constitutional Court in Chișinău.
Along with Poland, Romania has always been the most skeptical-of-Russia country in Eastern Europe. This does not mean that the Russian influence is not felt in this country as well.
Russia continues to rally more and more troops on the Ukrainian border, exceeding the level reported in 2014, the year of the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula which eventually triggered the conflict in Donbass. The mobilization is doubled by a massive disinformation campaign depicting Ukraine as the aggressor, killing civilians in Donbass and planning an offensive in the region.
One of the mantras in some political and media circles over the last decades is that the bloc does not have a foreign policy and it is weak in its external relations. This is a rather erroneous judgement.
The surrender or transfer of power have always been the center of attention in Chisinau, which proves that democracy, even after 30 years of independence from the Soviet Union, is still fragile.
The United States and NATO will withdraw from Afghanistan nearly 20 years since their first intervention in this country. President Joe Biden decided all troops must pull back by September 11, four months later than the original deadline set by the Trump administration. The Taliban perceive the Americans’ withdrawal as a win. It remains to be seen if this will suffice or if they try to press their advantage and continue their war against the government in Kabul.
Last year was a year of mask diplomacy, and 2021 is becoming a year of vaccine diplomacy. While the EU is struggling to procure and roll over the vaccines it needs for its citizens, Great Britain and Serbia (European countries, but non-EU members), are European leaders of vaccination.
After years of sparring with Brussels over his rule of law approach, which led to increased isolation for his Fidesz party, Hungary’s Viktor Orban decided to strike back by forging an alliance with Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Italy’s Lega. The plan was to start by setting-up a new party bloc within the European Parliament. However, this may prove to be easier said than done.
The Pandemic has shaped the perception of the citizens in the Republic of Moldova about the East and the West. Whereas one year ago, Russia and China were very cleverly scoring points in terms of visibility in Chișinău, over the last 12 months the roles have been reversed with the EU and Romania.
A mysterious plot in Jordan, one of the most stable countries in the Middle East, made waves in early April. It is not known exactly who the conspirators were - so far only a few names have been made public - what their intention was and who supported them. However, there’s been talk of a former crown prince, the Bedouin tribes, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The world is actively looking for opportunities to use hybrid engines to protect the environment. However, in the Ukrainian version, the problem with electricity has primarily a political focus. Energy relations with Russia and Belarus confirm this.
Ukraine seems to have owned up to its European track (and discourse) after the 2013-2014 Euromaidan protests and the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU in 2016. Nevertheless, the media and the political class still advance a type of rhetoric steeped in narratives of Soviet origin. A typical example in that sense is linked to mainstream discourse on Romanian statehood, the Romanian people, the history of Romanians and the Romanian community in Ukraine.
The latest espionage scandal in Italy, whereby an Italian officer with access to confidential NATO information was caught red-handed while selling secret documents to a Russian military attaché, once again highlights hostile Russian actions against NATO. The resurgence of such activities occurred especially after the Euromaidan and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014.
PM Boyko Borisov’s long-ruling and controversial party is winning the vote but at the same time is lacking a majority and there’s no obvious partner to form a coalition.
The anti-restriction protests triggered a real festival on Sputnik, the Kremlin's main Romanian-language propaganda tool.
Four elections in less than two years, and Netanyahu continues to come out on top and stay in power. In a world as difficult as today, with all the developments in the Middle East, in a society as complex as Israel, that is no easy feat. Still, Bibi, as most Israelis like to call him – or “King Bibi”, for his most diehard supporters – has succeeded even when the whole world was against him. And he’s now become the veteran (and survivor) of Israeli politics.
