With the existence of several trends and processes around the world, the debates on the nature of the new architecture of the contemporary international security system, as well as the position it occupies on the "great chessboard," the Russian Federation forms a special sphere in the speeches of the great Western political leaders.
With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the USSR, Russia is trying to regain the status of international power lost in the late twentieth century. The Russian Federation in foreign policy aims to consolidate its positions through political and economic influence in its immediate neighborhood, especially in South-Eastern Europe. Russia has delimited the following areas of influence that have historically always been in its monitoring:
21 1. Slavic republics: Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova (although 85% of the population
is not Slavic).
2. Transcaucasian Republics: Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan 3. Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
4. The Central Asian Republics: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
Among the union republics, the Baltic Republics are the only ones that have not joined the CIS, wanting to re-establish their historical ties: Estonia with Finland, Latvia with the Scandinavian countries, Lithuania with Germany and Poland. If, from an economic point of view, these countries' pro-Western orientation was firm and found their coronation by admission to the European Union, which took place in 2004, the reception within NATO was much more put in predictable. The Baltic countries hold a crucial position for the exit of the Russian Federation to the Baltic Sea. Still, they also have strategic importance for the Russian space: important trade routes pass through their territory. Also, Russian ports on the Baltic Sea are frozen in winter. As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost the most important ports - Tallinn, Klaipeda, Riga, Ventspilis, except for St. Petersburg and the Kaliningrad enclave. The detachment of these states accentuates Russia's situation in the international arena. Russia has controlled the Baltic states since 1700, and the loss of the ports of Tallinn and Riga has limited Russia's access to the Baltic Sea (Brzezinski 2010, 87-96).
All these territorial losses caused an imbalance of geopolitical areas. New states have appeared on Russia's borders, weaker from an economic point of view, but poses a threat to Russia's national security. The detachment of these states accentuates Russia's position in the international arena.
The Republic of Belarus is the only state that has spoken out in favour of maintaining good relations with Russia once it has gained independence, avoiding any association with Western values in the future. Belarus is a state with a very significant geostrategic value for the Russian Federation because it is located at the intersection of railways, highways, oil and gas pipelines and connects Europe with Asia. Belarus is also a buffer zone between the EU and Russia. Through communication networks in Belarus, 70% of the economic and trade relations of the Russian Federation (export of energy resources) to the European space are achieved. Belneftihim is pumping 85 million tonnes of oil and gas to European countries.
Gomel and Novopolo are part of the "Drujba" pipeline, which carries 80% of its fuel exports to Germany, Poland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine.
22 Moreover, on the territory of Belarus, there are 2 Russian military objects of overwhelming strategic importance. Since 2003, the radio station "Volga" has been part of the Brest area's anti-missile system. It covers the North-West and has the potential to follow the launch of ballistic missiles in Europe. The second strategic object is the Russian Federation's communication hub located in Vileiki (Minsk region), which broadcasts radio sounds for the maritime and underwater fleet located in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Belarus is the only loyal ally of the Russian Federation near its borders. Russia is considered to be part of its area of influence in Eastern Europe in the future (Cebotari, Gutu and Xenofontov 2014, 15-17).
One of the Kremlin's great uncertainties is Ukraine's pro-European and pro-NATO orientation. Ukraine means great economic and agricultural potential for Russia and represents an important part of the "Russian world." Once Ukraine became an independent state, Russia lost its dominant position in the Black Sea. In Soviet times, the Odesa was the gateway to trade routes to the Mediterranean Sea and the rest of the world. Thus, Russia's geostrategic instruments were limited to the Black Sea basin. With control over Ukraine, the Kremlin could dominate the Balkan states.
As in the Baltic Sea case, Russia has significantly reduced its power and influence within the Black Sea due to the independence of Ukraine and the Caucasus states (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan). Before 1991, the Black Sea was the starting point of Russian naval power in the Mediterranean. Currently, there are 388 units in the waters of the Black Sea.
Basically, 70% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet fleet's infrastructure is in the Crimean area.
(Cebotari, Gutu and Xenofontov 2014, 18-21).
Georgia is another state in the Russian Federation's sights, a geostrategic position within the Black Sea. Sukhumi and Batumi are two ports of great economic and geopolitical importance, and the importance of Georgia abroad has grown with the discovery of energy resources in the Caspian Sea. This country is also located on one of the main Caspian oil routes, connecting to the European space. Pipes crossing Georgian territory are of great importance to the European Union, as they reduce their dependence on Russian supplies and do not cross Russian territory.
Another factor that defines the importance of Georgia's physical and geographical position is its role in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even if it is close to a conflict that is ready at any moment to erupt and high levels of corruption, Georgia has chosen the path of Western development. The "Rose Revolution" has resulted in the most significant increase
23 in international trust in a country that It has proclaimed its adherence to democratic values, and maintaining frozen conflicts is a geopolitical priority for the Russian Federation, as they are the regional levers of control, monitoring or military involvement in these conflicts of power offered by bilateral agreements. a geopolitical "bridgehead" for the development of regional affairs and the promotion of economic interests in the area market, the exploitation of mineral resources in the area (Taranu 2011, 127-130).
The Republic of Moldova is the only state that does not directly border with Russia in Eastern Europe. However, this does not prevent the Kremlin from keeping it in its area of influence. Within the USSR, Moldova played a decisive role in the military system in the South-West of the Union. Moldova's territory is the bridgehead for future military operations to the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, the Suez Canal.
The relatively small area and lack of natural resources make Moldova a weak state of strategic importance for Russia. The food products that Moldova exports to Russia are not of major importance for the Russian food market. Due to Transnistria and corrupt civil servants, there could be Russian interests, which often have a dubious origin, with the Republic of Moldova fulfilling many of the characteristics of an "offshore" area (Cebotari, Gutu and Xenofontov 2014, 22-24).
The Russian Federation's geostrategic interests in the Eastern European space are at the center of the existing attention and debates both in the academic environment and in the disputes of the political leaders of the US, NATO, and EU powers. All these disputes are conditioned by the interest in the ongoing events in the Eastern European space, especially in the Caucasian states, the events in eastern Ukraine, and the socio-political situation in the Republic of Moldova.
The EU and Russia are geo-strategically two great powers that geographical and geopolitical reality has turned into direct neighbours. Each has a strategy for direct neighbourhoods: the European Neighbourhood Policy and the official Russian doctrine of
"close neighborhood." These "overlapping" neighbourhoods will continue to create long-term problems because Brussels and Moscow will often perceive their goals as incompatible, zero-sum gambling intentions.
If for Russia, the maintenance of unresolved conflicts, such as Transnistria, seems beneficial because it allows Moldova to be kept in its sphere of influence, for the EU, these actions are perceived as destabilizing, aggressive and dangerous. The Transnistrian enclave is an ungovernable space dominated by oligarchs and organized crime, where the risk of seeing
24 an increase in the volume of arms trafficking, people, narcotics is increasing. In this sense, a comparison is often made with Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave-type territory, where, against the background of degrading living standards and increasing unemployment, organized crime has paralyzed economic life (Cioculescu 2008, 5-9).
If one were to adopt a classical view of empires and consider that Russia and the EU are imperial forms characterized by territorial expansion and control of resources, then the neighbourhood’s overlapping would certainly cause major conflict in the future. But although Russia is strongly anchored mentally in the geopolitics of the past school and defensive neorealism inherited from the Cold War era, it no longer has the opportunity to do everything it wants without enduring hard consequences.
No matter how much the EU wants to live in a free and democratic world, the difficulty of continuing the enlargement of the Union and Russia's recent aggressive actions against Ukraine results in changing the territorial status quo in the Black Sea. This demonstrates the need for the EU a political and economic approach to the "neighborhood," but a "strategic"
one, which will be able to counterbalance the hegemonic tendencies that are manifesting to combat the risks and demonstrate that it is a credible international actor.
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CHAPTER II
The EU and Russian approach regarding to Republic of Moldova
The European Union is an influential political entity representing an economic, commercial, financial and cultural giant in the arena of international relations. The process of European integration has made a significant contribution to the Member States development, which continues to deepen its Europeanization process. For the Republic of Moldova, its proximity to the great European family represents a strategic goal that will accelerate the development and settlement of political, economic, social problems and more efficient cooperation in the Transnistrian field conflict. The Republic of Moldova proclaimed its independence on August 27, 1991, as one of the successor states of the Soviet Union. Since then, several actions have been taken that have boosted the relationship between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union.
The legal framework underlying Moldovan-European relations is the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which was signed on 28 November 1994 for a period of 10 years. On July 13, 1995, Moldova became the first state in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to join the Council of Europe. This represents an important step in bringing Moldova closer to the EU. In 2001, Moldova became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.
In 2002, at the United Kingdom and Sweden initiative, the European Commission launched a document proposing countries in the Union's neighbourhood, including Moldova, to work with the European Union in several areas and familiarize the European model population. With the launch of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004, a new policy document was signed - the European Union-Moldova Action Plan for 3 years (2005-2008), which aimed to accelerate political, economic reforms, deepening relations with the EU (Bălățel 2008).
The launch of the Eastern Partnership in 2009 aimed to deepen relations between parties by extending the areas of cooperation to both the bilateral and multilateral dimensions. The topics underlying cooperation are democracy, good governance, stability, economic integration, adaptation to common European policies, and energy security (EEAS 2016).
The Action Plan Republic of Moldova - European Union, was replaced in 2014 by the Association Agreement, which included 7 titles: General principles; Political dialogue and reform, foreign and security policy cooperation; Justice, freedom, and security; Cooperation in
26 the economic and other sectors; Trade and trade-related issues; Financial assistance and anti-fraud and control provisions; Institutional, general and final provisions (Association Agreement 2013). In August 2017, a new Association Agenda for the period 2017-2019 was approved, containing short-term priorities and the cooperation environment. Simultaneously, in addition to the cooperation structures established by the Association Agreement, the political dialogue between Moldova and the EU is ensured through meetings in the format of