ABSTRACT
To governments in the Atlantic community, the dissolution in 1991 of the Soviet Union and of its empire in Central and Eastern Europe seemed, at the first glance, to be the realisation of their wildest dreams. In the late 1980s, as Gorbachev's Soviet Union gradually relaxed its grip on its allies in Comecon and the Warsaw Pact, those states began to develop independent economic relationships with the European Community. There is not space here to review the European Union's (EU's) relations with all of these states. It is clear in any case that politically, strategically and economically Brussels gives priority to the four westernmost countries. The smallest of these states in area and population, Moldova is also the poorest country in Europe. It has had a troubled twelve years of independence, marked until recently by annual economic decline and chronic political instability.
