One more potential source of instability in East Europe

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Buna seara, plictisit prietenii mei! Ev'ning, m'dear bored fellows! Today I'm gonna occupy you with the story of a people who live so far away from you that you probably wouldn't care to try locating them on the map, even after I tell you how funny the name of their ethnic group sounds. Thing is, for them the EU is something bad, very bad. You see, obviously Brussels desperately wants to strangle their economy by insisting on painful modernization, while refusing to buy their glorious agricultural products. Romania is threatening them with cultural and social assimilation, and is hungry for territory. And in this disastrous situation where dangers lurk behind every corner, the only possible savior is... Russia.

That's how European integration looks in the eyes of the ethnic minorities in Moldova, the tiny country that neighbors on Ukraine to the south-west. Many Russians and Ukrainians in Transnistria, and Bulgarians and Gagauz in Gagauzia are concerned that Chisinau's cordial relations with Brussels could endanger their civil rights. While everyone was preoccupied with Russia's geopolitical retaliation to Ukraine's decision to side with Brussels, last month Moldova quietly signed an association agreement with the EU, which only fuels these fears some more, and gives new momentum to all the separatist rhetoric.

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