Georgia, Moldova: the European dream in the shadow of Russian interference

Located at the gates of Europe, Moldova and Georgia have, in recent days, been the scene of electoral confrontations between, on the one hand, political forces favorable to European integration and, on the other, political parties Russophiles. The political context of these two states is challenging. Why is their situation so important?

Moldova: a country that considers itself European?

Moldova is a country whose existence many Europeans will become aware of in 2022 following the massive influx of Ukrainian refugees, suggests Florent Parmentier. He even underlines that beyond the conflict, this emergency situation constituted an opportunity for Europeans “to see that their message still carries, despite the political vicissitudes that we can see both in Georgia and in Moldova.” Elsa Vidal adds: “many Moldovans dream and live of themselves as Europeans because first of all there is a regime which allows Moldovans to go to Europe without a visa and then around a third of the population lives and works in Europe, very often in the personal services sectors We speak a lot of French in Moldova, in addition to speaking Russian and Romanian And of course, part of the Moldovan population not only emigrates to Western Europe, many also work. in Russia.

A Moldovan syncretism?

Like its very diverse population, Moldova crystallizes a plural identity, as its tormented history suggests. If we take a historical detour, “Moldova is linked to Bessarabia”that is to say a group of territories attached to several Romanian principalities, recalls Florent Parmentier. He continues: “after the Great Patriotic War of 1812 which opposed Napoleon and Russia, this territory broke away from the principality of Romania and was included in the Russian Empire until 1918. The end of the First World War saw Moldova being placed under the authority of the Romanian kingdom Then, the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. [pacte germano-soviétique signé en 1939, NDLR] allowed the USSR to recover this territory which became independent in 1991″.

Moldova: a “fault line” torn between several empires

For Elsa Vidal, Moldova is torn by a “fault line” sometimes subject to one empire, sometimes torn away by another. “Before integrating the Russian Empire, it was located in the Ottoman Empire. It experienced a small period of independent republic that the Bolsheviks, once in power, appropriated by creating a false Moldova within the Union Soviet”. In this sense, she concludes that “all the techniques that we see at work today in this area of ​​Russia, in other words the tendency towards war, the tendency towards interference in internal political life, the creation of puppet parties do not constitute isolated facts, but on the contrary a technique of government, a political practice which can be taught and which is part of the tools of an empire”.

The challenge of maintaining a balance between East and West

Florent Parmentier shows through different examples that “people who were elected with a pro-European program, despite everything, wanted to keep contact with Russia because this corresponded to a form of internal balance in relation to the historical heritage of the country which also echoes its own population”. That said, he observes a change from 2022 since “the candidate Mr. Stoianoglu was forced to choose a side more assertively”. “This compulsion to choose is the result of the war in Ukraine. Most Moldovans would have done without itunderlines Elsa Vidal in the same sense. Moldova and Georgia have been trying since 2022 to hold a middle position: if the two countries condemn the Russian invasion in Ukraine, they do not apply economic sanctions which, sooner or later, they believe, will turn against them.