Republic of Moldova feels Romanian

CC Klearchos Kapoutsis

As protests are widespread in Moldova after the elections, where the pragmatic, pro-EU Communist Party [sic!] won a comfortable majority, the question lingers again about Moldova identity. Despite the efforts of the elite in Europe’s poorest, former Soviet state, many Romanians claim a part of the country to be [...]

Tony Barber writes about the latest round of the great Balkans naming game: Macedonia (a country that could not enter NATO and is not allowed to use its name in the United States because of a Greek veto over it) decided to rename an EU-funded cross-Balkans infrastructure project after its great conquering ruler, Alexander the [...]

Macedonia is a country recognized by 120 members of the United Nations and an applicant to EU and NATO. Another EU-member has been wrecking the enlargement strategy by a naming game, refusing the accept the name of the country.
A few months ago I not only found the obstruction of Greece shameful and tinted by the [...]

The Foreign Policy blog, Passport has an excellent round-up on the early elections in Macedonia. The newly established state that became sovereign after the break-up of Yugoslavia is struggling to build up a national identity that encompasses its ethnic groups. Most of Macedonia’s neighbors have a hidden territorial claim over the new state. Although Macedonia [...]

It had been a privilege of Russian politicians to destabilize Ukraine and Moldova. Romanian president Traian Basescu seems to be joining the club. Mr Basescu was quoted saying that should Ukraine annex some parts of Moldova, Romania should annex some parts of it, too. The Romanian leader also noted that Romania did not find it [...]

I think it is not a false oversimplification that the European Union is an antidote to European nationalism. Probably it has been so successful in preventing violent ethnic rivalry that some Europeans forgot what a strong force nationalism can be. It has just stopped the world’s strongest miliatary allience in implementing its enlargement strategy.
Nationalism had [...]