ABSTRACT
Moldova’s biggest problem is not so much the lingering Transdniestre issue as its own lack of direction … Looking to its past – some of the territory as part of eastern Romania until 1940 and then joined to Soviet Moldavia – Moldova has little idea of precisely what sort of country it really is now, let alone what strategy to follow … Many older citizens, but also a number of young people, look to the West and feel the country should reintegrate with Romania, from which it was torn by a Berlin-Moscow agreement in 1940. Others, most notably in the strong and largely unconstructed Communist Party, which currently holds forty seats in the 101-seat parliament, want close relations with Russia and the other former Soviet republics … ‘There is a contradiction about Moldova’s place in the world, which goes to the heart of things here,’ said a Western diplomat in Chisinau. He pointed to the current government, which came to power in December [2000], sustained by far rightists (who favour integration with Romania) and the Communists.
