Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin's signature on the March 18 Moscow declaration, with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Transnistria's leader Igor Smirnov (Interfax, Russian MFA website, March 18, 19; EDM, March 20, 25), amounts to a surrender in the final days of Voronin's presidency. This political... MORE

As negotiations continue between the EU and Belarus with the prospect of the latter joining the Eastern Partnership, the Belarusian opposition has formulated its own conditions for any future agreement. In turn, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has branded his opponents a "fifth column" and seeks to... MORE

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's March 18 meeting with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov (EDM, March 20) was designed to mark a qualitatively new stage in the long-running negotiations on the Transnistria conflict. While continuing to block the conflict resolution negotiations, Russia... MORE

Recent opinion polls and a local election on March 16 have shown that two stars are rising in Ukrainian politics. The time remaining until the January 2010 presidential election should show whether the two, far-right Oleg Tyahnybok and liberal economist Arseny Yatsenyuk, will prove viable... MORE

Moldova's Social-Democrat Party is being led by the tandem of former Prime Minister Dumitru Braghis (1999-2001) and young businessman-politician Eduard Musuc in these elections. The party targets both Moldovan and "Russian-speaking" voters. Accordingly, it promises to seek an association agreement with the EU, a strategic... MORE

Apparently panicking in the run-up to the April 5 elections, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has hoisted the white flag of surrender on Transnistria in return for a pre-election endorsement from the Kremlin. The president can not run for a third term of office but his... MORE

Moldova's opposition parties are small and leader-centered. Most of the opposition parties compete against one another for the same segments of the electorate or for overlapping segments. In these cases party labels are also often irrelevant or misleading. For a country that does not have... MORE

Moldova will hold parliamentary elections on April 5, and its new parliament will elect the new president and confirm a new government. Incumbent President Vladimir Voronin's second, final term of office expires in April. The transition process ahead will severely test the country's weak political... MORE

The efforts of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government to tighten control over the banking sector have failed. In order to qualify for loans from the IMF, the government has had to cancel its orders for the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) to buy government bonds... MORE

NATO and European Union (EU) membership for Romania was meant to consign to history its penchant for territorial claims and its poor record on national minority rights, but this was not to be. Ukraine, the non-NATO member with the greatest level of cooperation with NATO,... MORE