Belarus strongman offers 'new chapter' in rare talks with US

MSN – AFP, 29 August 2019 

Sergei GAPON Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko (L) with US National
Security Advisor John Bolton -- the highest-ranking US visit to Belarus in two decades

Belarus's strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday he was looking to open a "new chapter" in ties with Washington as he welcomed the White House national security advisor for rare talks in Minsk.

Lukashenko met with John Bolton as the aide to President Donald Trump embarked on the latest leg of his tour of ex-Soviet countries that was sure to ruffle feathers in Moscow.

The Belarusian president, a crucial ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin, said he hoped the visit would mark a turning point after years of distrust.

"Since the start of the deterioration of our relations with the United States, we have constantly proposed turning this bad page and opening a new chapter in our relations," Lukashenko said.

He said Bolton's visit would help "create the foundation for future relations".

Belarusian state news agency Belta said the talks lasted more than two hours.

The pair discussed a range of issues but did not make any concrete decisions, the agency quoted Bolton as saying.

Often dubbed "Europe's last dictatorship", Belarus has been the target of Western sanctions over its poor rights record and lack of fair elections.

Moscow remains a close ally however, and speculation has swirled for years of unification with Russia.

The idea has been put forward again since Putin's re-election last year, with some seeing unification with Belarus as a way for the longtime Russian leader to circumvent his country's constitutional term limits.

Lukashenko, a Soviet-era collective farm chief who become Belarus's first post-independence president, has pushed back at the idea of unification.

Russian 'weak spots'

It was unclear whether Bolton and Lukashenko had discussed sanctions, which the US eased in 2016. The European Union dropped its sanctions on Belarus in what it said was a bid to encourage progress on human rights.

But the Belarusian authorities have ramped up efforts to control media since anti-government demonstrations in 2017, with independent journalists and activists facing pressure and harassment.

Bolton's visit to Minsk comes after a meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on Wednesday.

The US advisor stressed Ukraine's "territorial integrity" in the face of its conflict with Moscow-backed separatists in the country's east.

Earlier Thursday Bolton met with the president and prime minister of Moldova, where he said the US would continue working with the former Soviet republic in defence and the economy.

Moldova recently formed a new government made up of an unusual coalition of pro-European and pro-Russian forces, following months of political turmoil.

"We discussed a wide range of questions relating to bilateral ties, and noted how these had strengthened after a peaceful transfer of power in June this year," Moldovan President Igor Dodon said.

Analysts said Bolton's trip was aimed at probing for "weak spots" on Russia's borders.

"The United States is likely to search for openings to increase its influence in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova," US geopolitical think-tank Stratfor said.

It was the highest-ranking US visit to Belarus in two decades, Stratfor said. The last US ambassador to Minsk left the country in 2008 in a spat over sanctions.

"While Belarus remains firmly within Russia's orbit, the countries' recent spats over oil supplies may have created an opening for the United States to attempt to expand economic and energy ties," Stratfor added.

Rally against 'missing billion dollars' in Moldova

Protesters have called on the government to investigate more than a billion dollars missing from banks. The scam has driven down the national currency, stoked inflation and hurt standards of living.

Deutsche Welle, 6 Sep 2015

Protesters yelled "we want the one billion back!" on Sunday, urging the central bank governor, the general prosecutor and others to resign.

In a fraud that has exposed endemic corruption and demonstrated the power of oligarch groups in the country, $1 billion (900,000 euros) has disappeared from the banking system - roughly one eighth of Moldova's gross domestic output.

The state-owned Savings Bank, the Social Bank and Unibank, where the money disappeared from before November 2014 parliamentary elections, were put under the National Bank of Moldova's administration in December, and the losses were covered by state cash reserves.

The banks will be liquidated by October.

Outrage over corruption

Protesters rallied in central Chisinau

That's led to a crisis in confidence among many Moldovans left to foot the bill in the ex-Soviet country of 3.5 million people.

"Dictatorship does not sleep. It is quaking with fear, doing everything it can to stop people from all regions coming here to the capital, Chisinau," said one organizer, Valentin Dolganiuc. "But we, tens of thousands of ordinary people, have come here to triumph and we shall."

Protesters directed much of their criticism at the country's super-wealthy oligarchs who control key sectors of the economy, threatened to stage a non-stop demonstration in central Chisinau until their demands were met.

The scandal has also tarnished the image of the pro-Europe ruling class for ordinary Moldovans, many of whom struggle by on a family income of about $300 (270 euros) a month, though many protesters carried pro-EU flags indicating they were not against European integration.

Police put the strength of Sunday's rallies at between 35,000 and 40,000 - bigger even than mass anti-communist protests of April 2009. Organizers claimed that three times as many turned out, many arriving from surrounding provinces.

The rallies will be a setback for Prime Minister Valeriu Strelet, whose appointment in July to succeed a disgraced predecessor opened the door to renewed dealings with international lenders including the IMF.

In an interview with Reuters in August, Strelet said Moldova would step up efforts to try to trace the missing $1 billion and bring the money back to Moldova from bank accounts abroad.

But an unpublished parliamentary report said some of the money was transferred to Russian banks. The banks are owned by Moldovan and Russian investors.

jar/se (Reuters, AP)

The Balkans' new zeal for protecting whistleblowers

Balkan countries vying to join the EU have passed, or are in the middle of passing, better whistleblower protection laws than most EU member states have. Ironically, the EU is co-financing this new anti-corruption zeal.

Deutsche Welle, 23 July 2015

It's impossible to fight corporate corruption if you don't know it is happening. But whistleblowers never get an easy ride, and their stories often end with the realization that if they'd known what they were getting themselves into, they wouldn't have become whistleblowers at all.

Visnja Marilovic was a bookkeeper at the Skenderija cultural and sports center in Sarajevo, when, one day in 2010, she was asked to process an invoice for a lot of beds. She realized that not only was her boss furnishing his new hotel with the company's money, but that evidence of corruption was passing across her desk every day. To Marilovic, reporting the crime wasn't whistleblowing - it was her job. "As a financial official, I was responsible for the documentation to be accurate and true," she told DW. "I thought I was protecting the company from disaster and my workplace altogether."

After googling how to file charges, and getting prosecutors to investigate, she assumed the director would be replaced and they could carry on working. Instead, she got fired and went through nearly three years of misery until her boss' trial finally began earlier this year. "I passed hell with my children and for two months I had to live under police protection because of threats," she said. "If I knew how much my kids had to suffer I would not have done it."

Progressive laws

Delegates from across the region
gathered at a Sarajevo hotel

With her life turned upside down, Marilovic now works at the Center for Responsible Democracy, a Sarajevo-based NGO that helped to draw up Bosnia's brand new whistleblower protection law - which came into effect in January this year. Bosnia is not the only country in the region that has written whistleblower protection into its legislation in the past few years - so have Romania, Serbia, Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro. Albania is in the middle of passing one through its parliament, while the Bulgarian government last year released an in-depth report that includes legislative proposals.

It all amounts to a surge of legislative activity in the region that was distilled a few weeks ago in a windowless hotel conference room in downtown Sarajevo. Legislators, government advisers, ministry officials, NGO workers, and actual whistleblowers came together for a conference organized by the international NGO "Blueprint for Free Speech" and the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative (RAI) to compare whistleblower protection notes.

"Countries like Bosnia, long thought of as more economically backward, are now moving forward more seriously on whistleblower protection than Western European countries," said Suelette Dreyfus, executive director of Blueprint for Free Speech. "If Western Europe doesn't lift its game, it will end up being left behind in the dust."

The irony is of course that many of these efforts are being co-financed by the European Union, even though Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal, for instance, have no dedicated whistleblower protection laws.

Meanwhile, Blueprint's Mark Worth, who says he has studied around 70 whistleblower laws and draft laws around the world, explained the priorities to those assembled: "The three things a whistleblower needs are: a place to disclose information, protection from retaliation, and for the thing to be investigated. The law has to create loophole-free provisions and mechanisms for those three things to be covered."

Curing the cancer

Deputy Justice Minister Idlir Peci is
about to get Albania's new whistleblower
protection law through parliament

In the heat of the summer afternoon, with phrases like "Can we at least agree that pre-court protection is necessary?" flying across the conference room, the Albanian Deputy Justice Minister Idlir Peci, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, explained that he had been stung by his country's terrible record on corruption.

"I spent 20 years in the Netherlands, and I decided to come back to my country because I saw a will to change things," he told DW. "I think all the countries in the region are tired of being dragged down. And I think the politicians are also realizing they cannot hide behind their fingers and sell beautiful stories to the public without really accomplishing these beautiful stories."

But where is this new energy coming from? "My motivation comes from all the reports, especially from Transparency International, but also all kinds of other rankings, where Albania scores very badly," he said. "And from the public perception that corruption is a cancer in society that has to be cured."

A polite nudge from the EU

Yavor Siderov, advisor to the Bulgarian deputy prime minister, was making similar noises: "There seems to be a very concerted effort with regards to anti-corruption and whistleblowing, which is amazing. It's a very positive trend, given that the Balkans are constantly being given as examples of rampant corruption."

Both Peci and Siderov also said that the competition to join the EU was acting as a spur - as was the money the EU offers to help fund the laws. "It's always a good thing to have the European Union provide you with a polite nudge down the road of transparency and anti-corruption," said Siderov.

As the conference wound down, Mark Worth delivered a closing pep talk to encourage the assembled legislators. "It's a very delicate issue, and I'm hearing a lot of tentativeness," he told the various delegations. "I think you should be brave, because the whistleblower's being brave."

But as Marina Micunovic, a senior advisor at the Montenegro Ministry of Justice, underlined afterwards, the point of a whistleblower law is to end the need for bravery: "At the moment, we are just applauding the ones who are brave, but they are not our target group," she said. "We need to encourage the ones who are afraid."

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EU leaders meet with ex-Soviet partners in Riga

The European Union has gathered in Latvia to meet with eastern countries and bolster ties. Russia has warned that the meeting "mustn't hurt" its interests.

Deutsche Welle, 21 May 2015

European Union leaders met in the Latvian capital of Riga on Thursday for a summit of the bloc's Eastern Partnership program, eighteen months after the last meeting set off a fateful chain of events that led to the current turmoil in Ukraine.

The program seeks to bolster ties between the EU and six former Soviet nations: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Just before the two-day summit, the European Union promised grants amounting to 200 million euros ($223 million) to support small and medium sized businesses in some of these countries, including Ukraine, but as German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured above with Latvian President Andris Berzins) stressed ahead of the meeting, these talks "are not an instrument" of EU enlargement.

"We should therefore not raise any false expectations that we cannot fulfill later," Merkel told German lawmakers in Berlin before boarding her plane to Riga.

Russia takes center stage

Relations with Russia are likely to be a hot topic at the meeting, as the last summit in November of 2013 saw former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych withdraw his country's bid to sign an association agreement with the EU, opting instead for closer ties with Russia. The resulting protests in Kyiv ultimately caused Yanukovych's ouster which, along with Russia's annexation of Crimea, brought about the ongoing conflict in the east of Ukraine which has claimed over 6,000 lives.

The two-day summit will be
closely watched by the Kremlin

Speaking in Riga, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said his country was "ready to demonstrate a real fight against corruption and improve the investment climate."

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drew a line in the sand, saying that while it wasn't a "tragedy" that the six nations were seeking closer ties with Europe, the developments of the meeting "musn't hurt the interests of the Russian Federation."

But Donald Tusk, former prime minister of Poland and current European Council president, dismissed Russia's "bullying tactics" after arriving in Riga.

"The Eastern Partnership is not a beauty contest between Russia and the European Union. But let me be frank: beauty does count," Tusk said at the start of the summit. "If Russia was a bit softer, more charming, more attractive, perhaps it wouldn't have to compensate its shortcomings by destructive, aggressive and bullying tactics against its neighbours."

Tsipras to meet with Hollande and Merkel

Although Russia and its President Vladmir Putin will be important themes of discussion at the summit, the Greek debt crisis will also be on the agenda. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is set to meet with Merkel and French President Francois Hollande after dinner on Thursday, as an end of June deadline looms over a debt deal for Athens.

However, Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble downplayed hopes for reaching an agreement soon, telling news agency Reuters on Thursday that the Greek government's optimism may be unfounded and that one should not rule out a possible default.

es/msh (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Spring again in the Republic of Moldova – mass protest against corruption

In Chisinau, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against corruption and demanded a comprehensive investigation of the latest bank scandal, in which approximately a billion euros have "disappeared."

Deutsche Welle, 4 May 2015

Moldovans call it the "robbery of the century." According to statements by the Central Bank, three Moldovan financial institutes allegedly granted loans for a total of some 900 million euros ($950 million) just before the parliamentary elections in November 2014.

According to media sources, most of the money supposedly disappeared in Russian banks. The national anti-corruption authorities are now investigating. They have the help of a US consultancy firm whose report, known as the "Kroll Report", is being kept under wraps by the Moldovan government. In the meantime, the three Moldovan banks have been placed under state supervision.

Over 40,000 people from all over Moldova came to the capital Chisinau on Sunday to demonstrate for the return of the money and a comprehensive investigation of the theft of the century. They demanded the immediate publication of the Kroll Report and the resignation of the Attorney General as well as the head of the national anti-corruption authorities.

Lack of trust in politics

Moldovans came out in force
to protest corruption

The protest activities were mobilized by the newly founded citizen platform called "Dignity and Truth", to which leading personalities in Moldovan civil society belong. Demonstrators gathered in the Square of the Grand National Assembly under the Moldovan and the EU flag to blame the new government of Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici for widespread corruption and the deadlock in the European rapprochement process of their country. # links # The minority government, consisting of the Liberal Democratic and Democratic Party, is supported by the Communist Party. Critics see this as a departure from the prescribed pro-European course of the Republic of Moldova and a nod to Moscow.

According to Igor Botan, co-founder of the new platform and the director of the Association for Participative Democracy, the people's support for the country's chosen path to Europe has shrunk drastically from 73 % to 37 %. The reasons are probably mismanagement and corruption on the part of the government, which describes itself as pro-European. "It's almost a catastrophe. We want our messages and our behavior to restore the citizens' faith in Europe," said Botan.

A general strike is planned

The protest march on Sunday was a sign for the state to strengthen monitoring mechanisms against corruption. Should the government ignore the demands of the demonstrators, they have announced a general strike in two weeks. The entrances to the government building, parliament and the public prosecutor's office will then be closed off.

In an emergency session of the government, Prime Minister Gaburici asked the responsible state institution to maintain public order and avoid any activities – even if their origin is external– that may lead to social and political unrest.

Gaburici invited representatives of the demonstrators to talk about their demands on Monday. It is in the interest of his government to resolve the crisis in the financial sector and to stabilize the economic situation in his country, said the prime minister.

The demonstrators' demands are backed by their compatriots in several European capitals. Their neighbor Romania also spoke clearly on their behalf. In her message to the protesters on Sunday, European Member of Parliament and former Romanian justice minister, Monica Macovei, stated that the only solution for the situation in the Republic of Moldova is strengthening the judicial system and anti-corruption authorities. In the process it is necessary that an independent person be appointed to a top government office to implement judicial reform without consideration for the aims of party politics.

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EU parliament ratifies deal with Moldova

The European Parliament has defied a past Russian warning and ratified closer EU ties with Moldova. Russia has tighted trade with the small, ex-Soviet republic bordering Ukraine since the EU signaled inclusion in June.

Deutsche Welle, 13 Nov 2014

The EU's parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to proceed with the EU's planned association agreement with Moldova. The trade and political pact still has to be ratified by the EU's 28 nations before coming into force.

Moldova ratified the deal last July.

EU and Moldovan officials insisted during Thursday deliberations in Brussels that the intended partnership should not be seen as a provocation.

Ukraine's current warfare can be traced back to Kyiv's first pro-EU association bid last year despite objections from Russia and separatists.

'Serious consequences'

In late June, Russia had warned of "serious consequences" when EU leaders at a Brussels summit signed an agreement to deepen ties with visiting leaders of Moldova, Georgia and war-torn Ukraine.

Russia on Thursday again denied accusations from Kyiv and NATO that Moscow had sent troops and heavy weapons to separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow also said it would send another humanitarian convoy comprising 82 trucks into eastern Ukraine on Friday.

'Show of solidarity'

During Thursday's vote in Brussels, 535 EU parliamentarians voted in favor of association with Moldova, with 94 opposed and 44 abstentions.

Conservative EU parliamentary leader Manfred Weber said the assembly had voted to "give a helping hand to the citizens of Moldova and to show our solidarity in times of external pressure against the country."

Parliament's center-left president, Martin Schulz, of Germany said it was "absolutely unacceptable" that Russia had imposed trade sanctions on Moldova.

Last year, Russia banned imports of wine from Moldova, asserting quality problems, and extended sanctions in recent months to other farm produce, noteably apples.

The EU parliament in a declaration said the intended association would theoretically span all the internationally recognized territory of Moldova, including Trans-Dniester.

Some 2,000 Russian troops are stationed in the narrow, breakaway majority Russian-speaking Moldovan province on Ukraine's south-western flank.

The EU's commissioner for neighborhood policy, Johannes Hahn, acknowledged on Thursday that the agreement "cannot be effectively implemented yet" everywhere.

Moldova nears election

The EU move precedes a parliamentary election due in Moldova on November 30.

Surveys show a neck-and-neck race between Moldovan parties which favor eventual EU accession and those which want entry into a Russian-dominated customs union.

Moldova's current prime minister, Lurie Leanca, has said his country hopes to apply for EU membership next year.

Moldova has about 3.5 million residents. The majority speak Romanian. Ethnic Russians make up about 6 percent of Moldova's overall population. In breakaway Trans-Dniester they comprise about 60 percent.

'Not a threat'

EU parliamentarian Petras Austrevicius, who shepherded the association deal through the assembly, said he hope the move combined with Moldova's election would lead to the "building of a free society and market-based economy."

"The association process is not a threat to Russia's political and economic interests," said the liberal Lithuanian member of the EU's parliament.

Moldova, which ranks as one of Europe's poorest countries, is largely dependent on earnings from agriculture.

Trans-Dniester broke away from Moldova in 1990. Some 1,500 people were killed in a war between separatists and Moldovan forces in 1992.

Last Monday, Moldovan war veterans reportedly scuffled with the bodyguards of a pro-Russian separatist leader at the airport of Moldova's capital, Chisinau.

ipj/kms (dpa, AFP, AP)

Moldovan parliament ratifies agreement with EU

Moldova's parliament has ratified a EU association deal signed in Brussels last Friday, similar to the deal pivotal in Ukraine's crisis. Moscow says it will campaign for Transdniestria, a breakaway region of Moldova.

Deutsche Welle, 2 July 2014

Moldova's President Nicolae Timofti (pictured) said Wednesday after parliament's ratification in the capital Chisinau that the former Soviet republic would next ask for a timetable to join the European Union.

Moldova, with 3.5 million people, is one of the poorest countries in Europe and has no major heavy industry or natural resources. It lies between Romania and Ukraine and has no border with Russia.

Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca signed the association deal opening the door to possible integration into the 28-nation EU on Friday alongside the leaders of Ukraine and Georgia, also both ex-Soviet republics.

Russia reacts by redirecting trade

On Wednesday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin responded to Moldova's ratification by signing several memoranda with Transdniestria to redirect goods produced for EU countries to the Russian market.

Transdniestria is home to about half a million people - 30 percent of ethnic Russian origin - and about 2,500 Russian soldiers, and is dependent economically on remittances from Russia.

In May, Rogozin promoted a petition in which residents of the pro-Russian Moldovan region backed a union with Russia.

EU association pivotal to Ukraine crisis

The EU association deal eventually reached with Kyiv was at the heart of the crisis that erupted in Ukraine last year, when its former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych backed out of the deal and flew to Russia to firm up ties with the Kremlin instead.

That triggered huge protests, mainly in Kyiv, that drove him from power. Moscow responded by annexing the mainly Russian-speaking Crimean Peninsula in March, and pro-Russian separatists then rose up in Ukraine's eastern provinces.

EU association allows for increased trade and political cooperation and can - after a long and complicated procedure - lead to EU membership.

ipj/bk (Reuters, AP, AFP)

Related Article:

Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova sign deals strengthening political, trade ties to EU

Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova sign deals strengthening political, trade ties to EU

The leaders of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have signed deals with the EU designed to strengthen political and trade ties with the bloc. Russia's reaction was almost instant, and it wasn't a message of congratulation.

Deutsche Welle, 27 June 2014

Ukrainian President Petro Poroschenko (pictured above, center) signed the association agreement with the European Union on the second day of a summit of the bloc's 28 leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

"I think this is one of the most historic days for my country after getting independence," Poroshenko told reporters as he arrived for the signing ceremony. "It's an absolutely new perspective for my country."

It was a decision by Kremlin-friendly former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych late last year to balk at signing the agreements, that in part sparked the country's ongoing crisis.

The two other eastern European leaders who signed deals on behalf of their respective countries expressed similar sentiments to those of the new Ukrainian president.

"Moldova has made a choice and that choice is definitive: It is that of European integration," Moldova's Prime Minister Iurie Leanca said.

"Becoming a full member of the unified European family is Georgia's unwavering will," Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said, adding that it marked "the beginning of a great journey."

The president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy described the signings as making Friday "a great day for Europe... the European Union stands by your side today more than ever before."

He also said that the accords contained "nothing that might harm Russia in any way" and that they offered all involved the opportunity "to chart together a safer future."

Russian rage

However, Russia, which has seen its influence in decline in much of eastern Europe through the expansion of the EU and the Western military alliance NATO in recent years, quickly expressed its disapproval of the agreements signed on Friday.

"The consequences of the signing by Ukraine and Moldova will certainly be serious," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency. He added however that "the signing of such a serious document is, of course, a sovereign right of any state."

With the signings completed, the 28 European heads of state and government were expected to get down to the business of trying to reach a consensus on who should be the next head of the European Commission.

By Friday morning it was looking increasingly like Jean-Claude Juncker would win their approval, with just British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban on the record as opposing the candidacy of the former premier of Luxembourg.

pfd/ipj (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)

Moldova turns toward Russian Customs Union

Deutsche Welle, 18 March 2014

While the world watches Crimea, Putin is still planning for the Republic of Moldova to join Russia's Customs Union. Pressure from Moscow is high - and might be enough to scrap Moldova's EU Association Agreement.

First, Russia limited wine imports from Moldova. Then, of the roughly half a million Moldovans working there, it denied work visas to 20,000.

Now, it seems Moscow is moving from sticks to carrots in its attempt to persuade Moldova to rethink an upcoming EU Association Agreement: As of February, the Gagauz, an ethnic minority, have been preparing a popular protest against the EU deal - and seem to be winning Moscow's favor for their efforts.

Previously, Moldova had been considered a safe candidate for an EU Association Agreement. Located between Romania and Ukraine, it is supposed to sign the contract withthe EU this summer - despite its "frozen conflict" in the separatist region of Transnistria.

That region is increasingly demanding to join the Russian Federation outright - or, at the very least, to join its Customs Union. One hundred kilometers (62 miles) south of Molodva's capital, Chisinau, economic relations to Russia, it seems, are more important than EU trade.

Welcome to Gagauzia

The Gagauz people

The heart of the resistance against the EU agreement is the sleepy town of Comrat, the capital of the region of Gagauzia. Mihal Formuzal is instigating the protests in the city of 23,000.

Like most in his region, Formuzal belongs to the Gagauz ethnic minority. Of roughly 250,000 descendents worldwide, nearly 150,000 live in Moldova.

He is their "baschkan," or "leader." Administratively, the region is autonomous, run by the group whose ethnicity is Turkic and whose religion is Orthodox Christian. Only judiciary, foreign policy and security are not under regional control.

Leading the turn toward Russia:
Mihail Formuzal

Formuzal, who formerly served as a major in the Soviet army's artillery unit, is calling on followers to fight the EU agreement. The Association Agreement, he says, only puts the economy in the region out of balance. It also threatens the autonomy of Gagauz, he argues.

In a symbolic local referendum, 98.5 percent of the around 70,000 Gagauz who participated said no to better EU trade relations, instead favoring inclusion in Putin's free trade union.

'We're not against the EU'

Kazakhstan and Belarus are already members of Russia's Customs Union. As of next year, the three-party coalition is meant to become a federation similar to the EU.

The autonomous region of Gaugazia has good trade relations with Russia, where its agricultural products do well. According to Formuzal, Gaugazian farmers would hardly stand a chance in the European market.

And Formuzal knows the EU's economy. He studied in Geneva, Switzerland, and his son is studying in the German city of Giessen. "Our economy in Gaugazia needs another 10 years to become competitively viable in the EU. Only the Russian market can save us over the next ten years," he told DW.

That sentiment can also heard on the streets of Comrat, where 64-year old pensioner named Dimitri Dimcioglu is watching his grandchildren play on a playground. The former teacher is worried about his their future. "Unemployment here is very high, and industry is hardly developed," he told DW.

Locals are trying to make the right choice for their children and grandchildren

According to Dimcioglu, that's why many Gagauz move to Russia or to Turkey as foreign workers. On the streets of Gagauzia people speak Russian; at home they speak Gagauz, which, according to Dimcioglu, is "95 percent similar to Turkish."

Dmitri's participation in the referendum was pragmatic rather than political reasons. "I didn't vote for Russia, but for the customs unit," he says. "Us Gagauz, we're not against the EU, we're just against breaking with Russia:"

A moot point?

In Comrat, memories of
Soviet times remain fresh

For the region's governor, the concerns are similar. "The main issue is that currently 25,000 Gagauz work in Russia. If the Association Agreement with the EU is signed we will be chased out of the Russian Federation," he said. "What am I supposed to do? People will then demand work from me that I don't have."

Formuzal says his own efforts are already bearing fruit: As a form of reward, Russia will soon import Comrat wine. Gas prices for the Gagauz will also be lowered.

While his initial referendum may have been non-binding in a legal sense, it still carries a political punch: The Gagauz people also voted at that time that they would declare autonomy from the Republic of Moldova if the parliament in Chisinau were to sign an EU Association Agreement.

But Formuzal's protests might not be necessary for much longer. Moldovans will vote on a new parliament in autumn. According to polls, the country's communist party will win.

"Moldovans aren't stupid," said Inna Shapuk, a representative for the communist fraction in Moldova's parliament. "They see on TV how anti-democratic politics are under the flag of the EU. We want to show the advantages Russia's Customs Union would have."

Her first planned official act: simply scrapping the EU association agreement, if it were to be signed.