"Moldova seeks security in NATO"
Expert opinions on Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  11 April 2023 - 10:19

"The North Atlantic Alliance is ready to go as far as Moldova is ready to go in its relations with NATO," Mircea Gioane, the bloc's deputy secretary general said in an interview with the Romanian Agerpres agency in Brussels.

According to him, the Alliance has long passed the Partnership for Peace stage in relations with Chisinau. Gioane said Moldova has been their partner for several decades and the war in Ukraine has forced the Moldovan authorities to make even more ambitious proposals for the already existing partnership with NATO and with the European Union.

"Moldova is under our close attention, and even our foreign ministers have stressed the need for additional practical, financial and political support for Moldova and other partners under increasing pressure from the Russian Federation," Mircea Gioane concluded.

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on his bloc colleagues to further increase the financial support for Chisinau. After that, Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu announced before the meeting of NATO foreign ministers that Moldova will receive $750 thousand from NATO funds to strengthen the country's defence system. The republic had previously received a non-lethal aid package from the Alliance, but the authorities are asking for military assistance from the allies, first and foremost modern air defence systems.

As a reminder, after Russia's attack on Ukraine, there was serious talk in Chisinau about the expediency of abandoning the neutrality enshrined in the constitution. The opinion is spreading, and it can hardly be called unfounded, that this status is incapable of guaranteeing the country's security, so Moldova should join a stronger military alliance.

"Now a serious discussion is underway about our ability to defend ourselves, whether we can do it by ourselves or whether we should become part of a bigger alliance," said Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

The Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov made his assessment, saying that the West sees Moldova as a "new Ukraine" and that President Sandu, "eager to join NATO", is working for unification with Romania and is ready "for almost anything" for this purpose.

There are counter-questions - what else is left for this small European country when the unresolved (so far frozen) Transnistrian conflict continues on its territory? There is an illegal separatist entity, the "Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", backed by Moscow, and Russian troops are on this territory. And who else can be relied upon to guard against them but NATO and the EU, which are just next door? How can we assess the prospects of Moldova's progress toward membership in the North Atlantic bloc? And the need for such integration?

Prominent experts shared their versions on this subject with Caliber.Az.

Igor Munteanu, Ph.D. in Political Science, Associate Professor, former ambassador of Moldova to the USA, Mexico, and Canada, and ex-member of the Parliament, first of all, mentioned the rightness of the idea that Moldova cannot stay in suspense in the field of its national security any longer.

"As the old English proverb says, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're likely on the menu. The threats posed by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine long ago put an end to the expectation that the neutral status enshrined in 1994 in the Moldovan Constitution could keep us safe against the expansionist policies of our northern neighbour.

Why this is happening is clear to us all. Russia wanted to engage in a re-division of the world, hoping that Western countries would find a policy of spheres of influence acceptable and that the occupation of Ukraine would prove easy, with few losses. For a long time, Moscow believed that the 'grey areas' were in fact zones that historically belonged to Russia, no matter what the reasons were in the minds of the regime's official ideologues - and in this too the Kremlin miscalculated. In reality, no one can develop and build their well-being in an unstable world and that is why people's aspirations are focused on European integration, on politicians that can accelerate the process of adaptation of our countries to the conventions (convention) of the European Union. It is our right to live as we want and not according to the molds of the Russian military and politicians who are dreaming of recreating the neo-imperialist Soviet Union. The conflict is evident," the Moldovan diplomat noted.

So, he said, Russia thought it could force the West to keep a distance from its "exclusive zones of influence" and meanwhile, by force, loot and smash Ukraine as a state, as a nation, forbidding Ukrainians to even dream of full-fledged integration with the EU.

"No one can behave in today's world in such an unjust, unreasonable, mean-spirited way towards other nations, which is why everyone has stood up worldwide against the criminal designs and deeds of the Kremlin. Under the current circumstances, it is criminal not to defend the integrity of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and other countries that can fall under the wheels of the Russian military. That is precisely the reason why the EU and NATO are now proposing new formats of integration and interaction that might have seemed like a fairy tale just a few years ago. Remember even NATO's Bucharest summit in 2008, which then denied Tbilisi and Kyiv MAP, which was perceived by Russia as carte blanche to launch military action against Georgia. We learned that lesson, and in 2022, the war against Ukraine taught us all that no one has the right to deny us protection when we need it. The European Union has realised this and opened its doors wide to Moldova and Ukraine on 23 June 2022. But the fact is that there can be no EU membership without reliable security guarantees for the new members. And here the only legitimate organisation that can guarantee a high degree of security is NATO. It is encouraging that they are willing to give us attention and assistance now because we need it.

What can we do and where do we start? First, we need to be clear on the political national objective - our well-being and stability depend on the degree of integration into both structures - NATO and the EU - so we need to seek membership in them. They are complementary. Yes, we are now neutral by default. But that does not protect us from constant threats from Moscow, which commits crimes against humanity on the territory of Ukraine. We used to try not to notice that Russia was in fact using the left bank of the Nistru River as a military base; we murmured about the refusal to remove Russian ammunition and army from our territory in whispers. Perhaps it is time to transform our policy both towards pockets of instability on Moldovan territory and toward NATO membership. Yes, maybe we are not ready to fully comply with their criteria yet, but that's what the preparatory phases are for - for example, we should work towards starting negotiations with the EU in 2023 or 2024 as a pre-accession country and towards NATO we should launch a better form of partnership - NATO Enhanced Partnership.

In both cases, we should not start with the Constitution. First of all, defense and security is the primary function of the state authorities, and it's not a matter of scholastic rhetoric about a neutral Moldova. And second, we have to solve our national tasks under wartime conditions throughout the region, the lives of our people depend on good decisions of strategic importance, and the security of the people is above any narrow political gains. But this requires political will, backed by actions and concrete tools to achieve them", Igor Munteanu is sure.

Moldovan political commentator Victor Ciobanu believes that "Moldova's self-proclaimed constitutional neutrality is nothing more than a fig leaf that can't guarantee anything in terms of security. This has become particularly evident against the background of the war unleashed by Russia in neighbouring Ukraine".

He recalled that Russian missiles directed towards Ukraine have already crossed the Moldovan airspace more than once without any obstacles, and some of them even fell on its territory.

"Therefore, the current neutrality formula is no longer relevant and Moldova needs to think seriously about how exactly to ensure its security. All the more so as the whole architecture of regional, and indeed global, security is changing now and we need to define our place in it.

When the war is over - and its outcome is already quite clear - Ukraine will become a member of NATO and Moldova will find itself between the two member states of the North Atlantic Alliance. The most logical solution would be for Moldova to join NATO alongside Ukraine, as it also happens in the European integration process of the two neighbouring countries pursuing a parallel course.

But there are two problems for us here. 1) Meeting the criteria for NATO membership. The Moldovan army, unlike the Ukrainian army, does not meet these criteria, to put it bluntly. 2) Support by the population of joining the military bloc is not very popular and makes 20-25% in the polls, which is not enough so far.

In any case, cooperation with NATO will expand and deepen. EU and NATO officials have repeatedly stated that Moldova is part of Europe and of the new security system. Therefore, I believe that there is an end to the "grey zones" on the border between East and West and Moldova is becoming part of the Western world," Ciobanu said.

Caliber.Az