15 iunie 2022, Chișnău – Vicepremierul Nicu Popescu a acordat un interviu pentru BBC în cadrul emisiunii HARDtalk moderată de jurnalistul Stephen Sackur.
BBC Stephen Sackur: Welcome to HARDtalk on the BBC World Service with me Stephen Sackur. My guest today had been in this current job: foreign minister of Moldova for just 6 months when the Russian invasion of Ukraine pitched his small country into a full-blown regional security crisis.
Nicu Popescu is a young policy advisor, turned senior minister and deputy prime minister in a pro-western Moldovan government, which is officially neutral, but which sees much to fear in Vladimir Putin’s brand of Russian expansionism. In the early weeks of the war there was a real fear that the Russian military sweep through Ukraine could see Moscow push its offensive into Moldova, formally incorporating the breakaway territory of Transnistria into Putin’s vision of a greater Russia. That hasn’t happened, and for now the Russian military focus remains in the Donbas. But Moldova’s fragility has been thoroughly exposed on top of endemic poverty and corruption, the country is now struggling to cope with 100.000 Ukrainian refugees, the highest per capita inflow in all of Europe.
The country remains utterly depended on Russian energy supplies and that means, the current government’s desire to apply for EU membership and work with NATO on improving Moldova’s threadbare military could come at a high cost. In a neighborhood suddenly fraught with danger, how does Moldova best protect itself?
Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu joins me now. Welcome to HARDtalk.
FM Nicu Popescu: Its good talking to you, Stephen.
BBC Stephen Sackur: It’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Now Mr. Deputy Prime Minister you’ve had more than 100 days of observing Vladimir Putin’s invasion strategy in Ukraine. Right now, do you fear that Putin represents a threat to Moldova too?
FM Nicu Popescu: I think war is making every single person living on the European continent, and not only, feel the insecurity generated by this war, generated by this blatant breach of international law and of course we, as all other people living on the European continent, feel the impact of this insecurity.
Of course, giving our geography, our history, this insecurity in Moldova is indeed felt quite strongly. At the same time, we are of course ready for all possible developments, for all possible contingencies, but in our assessment, and this assessment is shared by our partners throughout the European Union and the United States and Canada, is that at this stage, there is not eminent or immediate military threat to Moldova.
We feel the impact of this war in multiple ways but when it comes to our military security, at this stage, the situation remains calm.
BBC Stephen Sackur: You phrased that very carefully. No imminent or immediate threat you said, but I’m sure, you just like me, you’ve heard Vladimir Putin’s words, the other day, where he appeared to be comparing himself to „Peter the Great”, of course, once Russia’s Imperial leader, and he said: „It is also our destiny, like his, Peter the Great, to return what is Russia’s and strengthen our nation”. Did you find that chilling? Thinking about the longer term and your security with regard to Russia?
FM Nicu Popescu: Moldova belongs to the citizens of Moldova. We have a very strong mandate to do what we do, a very strong support and absolute support for our independence and that is what we plan to do. Of course, we have seen statements coming from the Russian Federation about our region, about our country, which were not always framed in the best positive manner, but we don’t take this statement that you just invoked in anyway being attributable to the Republic of Moldova.
BBC Stephen Sackur: You are a neutral country. You’re not in NATO. You’ve chosen very deliberately to pursue a neutral path. You cannot be neutral, can you, in the current circumstances?
FM Nicu Popescu: The Constitution of Moldova was adopted in 1994 and according to that Constitution, Moldova has been a neutral state, since 1994, so this is the framework in which all Moldovan governments have been implementing our security policies and defense policies. This is what we work with.
At the same time, we are very clear about the fact that our neutrality does not mean indifference to breaches of international law, and from the first hours of the outbreak of the war, we had very clearly condemned the Russian aggression against Ukraine, our neutrality does not mean demilitarization, so we are speaking very clearly about our need to strengthen our security and defence capacity, to defend our neutrality, and our neutrality does not mean self-isolation in International Relations.
We have very good partnerships in the security and defense fear with partners that support Moldova and we have always been very clear and transparent about this.
BBC Stephen Sackur: In terms of defending yourselves and your country’s stability, you’ve got a very big problem, and that is: a swathe of your territory is in the hands of a break-away group who are loyal to Moscow, they call their territory Transnistria, and between 1500 and 2000 Russian troops are permanently stationed in that territory. That is an inbuilt instability for you, isn’t it?
FM Nicu Popescu: We do have a separatist conflict for roughly 30 years, that is indeed a Russian illegal military presence on the territory and we have always insisted on the fact that Russia should withdraw its troops from our territory. At the same time, the way we have structured and we have developed our approach to conflict resolution in the Transnistrian region and our attempts to persuade Russia to withdraw its troops, our approach has always been based on dialogue and diplomacy.
We are talking to the de facto authorities of the Transnistrian region about the conflict settlement, we have a dialogue that more or less is allowing us to keep stability and peace on the entire territory of Moldova, which includes the Transnistrian region.
BBC Stephen Sackur: But you know, much better than I do, that actually, in April, there was an instability, there was violence, there were grenade attacks on buildings in the Transnistrian de facto capital. You at that time, talked about worrying signs, you suggested that perhaps outside actors were involved. Now you’ve had time to reflect on it. What do you think was going on and who is responsible?
FM Nicu Popescu: So, there were indeed several explosions in the Transnistrian region. Of course, the situation in the region as a whole, again on the entire continent, is tense. Of course, these tensions are felt in Moldova, in the Transnistrian region of Moldova. Now when it comes to these explosions, they have not had any type of continuity. There were several of them. There were no victims. We are in touch with the de facto Transnistrian authorities on regular basis, I have a colleague in the government, a deputy Prime Minister for Integration who speaks regularly, meets regularly with our counter parts in the Transnistrian region and there is a desire to keep peace here.
When it comes to assessing what happens in Transnistria, of course our law enforcement agencies do not have the capacity to do the full forensic analysis of what happens on the territory, not controlled by the government of Chișinău.
BBC Stephen Sackur: You try to assess a situation which looks to some people, worryingly, like there is a parallel with Ukraine and that Russia is suggesting that there are real problems of discrimination and persecution of Russians, and Russian speakers in your country to quote a June 6 statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry: „With regret (they say) we have to state that Russian compatriots living in Moldova and Russian speaking people in general are often experiencing difficulties in guarantying their rights inside Moldova”. That is reminiscent to many of what the Russians say about what’s happened to the Russian speaking population in the Donbas for example.
FM Nicu Popescu: That is clearly not the case. All citizens of Moldova, all residents of Moldova, including speakers who have Russian or Ukrainian or Gagauz or Bulgarian as their mother tongues have their rights respected. That is very clear and that is also very felt by our citizens respective of their native languages, so these statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry are manifestly untrue.
BBC Stephen Sackur: Have you spoken to your counterpart Serghei Lavrov about this?
FM Nicu Popescu: The last time we spoke with Serghei Lavrov was in mid-November when I had a bilateral visit to Moscow. Since then, we have not talked about that. But our colleagues had, at the level of our ambassador in Moscow and the Russian ambassador in Chișinău. We do pass on messages to the Russian Federation and vice versa and we have indeed very clearly stated our disagreement with this assessment. We find it untrue and unconstructive, and unuseful.
BBC Stephen Sackur: Right, but like I say, the tensions are clearly there and your biggest problem of all maybe is that you have got a very fable, a very weak military. Your military spending is, if I may say so, in regional terms very very low. You only have about 5000 full time soldiers. Hardly any more than they have in Transnistria. And it’s obvious that if the Russians were at some point in the future to launch an attack inside of your territory, you would have no capacity at all, unlike the Ukrainians, you would have no capacity to defy them and resist them. So, your weakness is there for all to see.
FM Nicu Popescu: I will only agree with you in the fact that for almost 30 years, Moldova’s defense sector has not been very well taken care of, and not enough things have been to modernize and equip our military. At the same time of course, given the new regional context, the threats, the Russian aggression against Ukraine, we are in the process of revising and accelerating the modernization of our military.
At the same time, we’re not just looking at the numbers, what is very clear is virtually all Moldovan citizens want to live in an independent country, in a sovereign country, in an European country, and I would not just count militaries. What is clear is that our society is firmly committed and of course our military is always ready to do what they swore to do and that is to defend Moldova. And we are looking into the best ways to modernize and give everyone the capacity to ensure that Moldova will stay sovereign, independent, and European.
BBC Stephen Sackur: We will get to modernization and your relationship with NATO in a minute, but just one more question on your reading of Russia’s intentions. I’m sure you saw the statement from a general Rustam Minnekayev, a senior Russian general, who talked about the Russian long term strategy of occupying a huge area of Southern Ukraine, taking Odessa, and as he put it: ,,Opening up an access route to Transnistria”. Now, if all that would have happened, Moldova’s territorial integrity would be destroyed and I’m just wondering when you tell me that your assessment is for the moment you’re safe, how long you think you’re safe for?
FM Nicu Popescu: We cannot predict how the situation will evolve. At the same time, we are obliged as a government to be preparing for the full spectrum of threats and scenarios including negative military scenarios, and we have been doing that since November, so from before the war we started preparing for the full spectrum of threats. This is what we’re doing. So now we are not in a position to allocate different probabilities to this or that scenario.
It’s very clear that the situation in the region is dangerous. It’s very clear that the Russian aggression against Ukraine is a major problem for all the countries on the European continent. It’s also a problem for Moldova. Breaches of international law like that are a major problem, and what we have to do, without being able to predict how things will evolve is to prepare for a full spectrum of contingencies and this is what we are doing. At the same time, I cannot predict what will happen in the future.
BBC Stephen Sackur: Well, none of us can. But I just wonder if there is a sign of your nervousness that you, as a government, and as a judicial authority have arrested former president, former leader of the pro-Russian party, Igor Dodon, who very recently was your president but now it seems that he’s under suspicion of wide-spread corruption and even some reports suggest treason as well. He says it’s absolutely untrue and that this is all politics. Are you moving against him because he is pro-Russian?
FM Nicu Popescu: Well, that’s the justice system and that’s an ongoing investigation on which, of course, I cannot comment. At the same time, three years ago, roughly these days, some videos were put on YouTube, showing former president Igor Dodon taking a bag from an oligarch, and they talk about the fact that in this bag there is cash for the party. So, there are serious suspicions and allegations of significant corruption in which former president Dodon engaged and this is normal for any country with a functional justice system to investigate this kind of things. And you, and our BBC watchers can all check this on YouTube. This is easily available and the right thing to do with such allegations is for them to be investigated and these things are completely unrelated to the geo-political and security context.
BBC Stephen Sackur: You are right, but of course he says, Dodon says that this is a complete fabrication. I just wonder whether you worry, again, about the rising tension with Moscow, because Mr. Peskov, Putin’s spokesman and others have talked about the way they’re watching this case, and they clearly feel that there is a rising anti-Russian sentiment in your country.
FM Nicu Popescu: This case is unrelated to the regional context, to the geopolitical context. Our society wants the political class to be cleaner. President Maia Sandu and this government were elected to clean up corruption, to improve governance, to reform the justice system and a true clean-up of corruption in any country starts from decisive actions against corrupt politicians. And this is what is happening. This is what should happen and that’s unrelated to foreign policy.
Now yes, Russia is watching, Ukraine is watching, Romania is watching, everyone is welcome to watch our domestic processes, our domestic politics, our justice system. We are also watching the politics and judiciary processes in other countries. At the same time, this is our business, we are an independent country, and our society wants our politics to be clean.
BBC Stephen Sackur: I’ll tell you what else Moscow is watching, and that’s the relationship you’re developing with NATO. As you’ve said to me, constitutionally you’re neutral and that’s not going to change anytime soon, but the British foreign secretary said just a few weeks ago that Moldova should be “equipped to NATO standard and the UK for one, intends to help Moldova do that”. We’ve also got the Americans talking about helping the Moldovan army become more capable, more effective. Are you in a sense trying to enter a partnership with NATO by the back door?
FM Nicu Popescu: We have a strong and good and very transparent partnership with NATO, we have had a so-called individual partnership action plan renewed every 2 years since 2006. All the parameters and the framework of our cooperation with NATO is very transparent. All of it is found online including our cooperation with NATO at his stage, so yes, we do cooperate with NATO, we do cooperate with the European Union, with the EU member states, with our neighbors, we participate in UN peace keeping missions. We do a lot to be present in international cooperative efforts to ensure security.
BBC Stephen Sackur: This is very delicate for you, isn’t it? The latest polling on NATO and your country’s relationship with it from within inside your own country suggests that three quarters of Moldovans do not support the idea of Moldova’s membership in NATO. You have to tread very carefully here.
FM Nicu Popescu: You are right about our public opinion, that indeed is the case. At the same time as I’ve said, Moldova has had a very good cooperation with NATO and partnership which is transparent that helped Moldova in multiple ways, and our society knows that. So, when you called such opinion polls, the answers are related to NATO accession prospects, but at the same time, our cooperation with NATO, we also have a strong bilateral defense cooperation with the US that is also supported widely by our population.
And as I’ve said, our neutrality does not mean self-isolation. Our neutrality means that we still need a functional, and strong and modern security and defense sector, and we are doing it through dialogue and through partnership with our partners and all of that is very transparent, and all of that is widely supported by our society.
BBC Stephen Sackur: It’s not just about NATO, it’s about the EU. Cause in the end, Moldova has to make choices about how it orientates its strategy going forward. Are you going to look to Brussels or are you going to look more to the regional space that Putin wants to create, if you want to call it „A greater Russia”? You, it seems are intent on joining the EU and in the next few weeks, the EU is going to give you a broad principal decision about whether they’re interested in having you as a member state. Are you sure in the current climate that’s a wise move?
FM Nicu Popescu: A wise move in a democracy is to do what people want, and to modernize the country, and our society for many decades already wants us to be in the European Union and that’s what we’re doing. For example, the ministry that I have the honour of representing here is called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration and it has been having this name for over 15 years. That’s a widely supported foreign policy priority.
Our society and of course my government is an expression of that, is that we are a European country with an European language, our language is Romanian, it’s already an official language of the EU, we have an European history, our economy is deeply integrated with that of the European Union, and we want to bring our country into the European Union, this is what we’re doing.
We just applied on the 3rd of March for the EU membership, and in the next days and weeks we are looking forward to making several significant steps receiving an EU accession perspective and positioning ourselves to a situation were soon we’ll become a protentional candidate country for EU membership.
BBC Stephen Sackur: Isn’t that a fantasy, given the levels of corruption in your country? Given the failing of your judicial system and given the terrible situation of your economy and the fact that you are so much poorer than the average EU standard of living? It’s going to be decades, it’s almost imaginable to imagine a scenario where Moldova meets the threshold for membership.
FM Nicu Popescu: Well, its imaginable because multiple, around 20 member countries of the European Continent did that before us. The European Community started with the ‘Shuman Declaration’ in 1950. So, that was 5 years after the Second World War. At that time, when Europe was destroyed, democracies were far from being consolidated, so the route we are taking has been taken before: by Italy, by Germany, by Spain, by Portugal, by Greece, by Romania, by Hungry, by Poland.
BBC Stephen Sackur: You know, as well as I do, that the political perspective has changed since then, and if you look at what the French government led by Emanuelle Macron is saying, look at what the Dutch government is saying, there is no appetite for a further expansion to include countries like Moldova.
FM Nicu Popescu: Well, I will not say that, of course in a few days, in a couple of weeks we will see the exact line and signal that will come from the EU member states regarding our European aspirations. At the same time, the signals we get is that all the countries throughout the EU understand we are a European country and they take our aspiration to join the EU as being legitimate, fair, correct and now the EU and the European Commission and the EU member states are doing their best to help us, and we’re doing that together.
BBC Stephen Sackur: It comes back to where we began, your relationship with Russia. The facts is you have a chunk of your territory that is de facto controlled by pro-Moscow forces. You still entirely depend on Russia for your gas supplies and most of your electricity. There are reasons to believe that in the end you need a relationship with Moscow as much as you need a relationship with Brussels. And in that context, I’m struggling to see why the EU would want to take Moldova on right now.
FM Nicu Popescu: Because the way of assessing our European prospects is not just by taking snapshots, and you’re talking about our degree of corruption, but let me give you a few other things if you look at thing in a perspective and in a dynamic. So just in the last few weeks we have been upgraded in the ‘Moneyval’ system when it comes to our systems in place when it comes to combating money laundry. We’ve improved, as we speak, in the recent weeks.
We’ve jumped 49 places on the ‘Reporters Without Borders’ freedom of a media index. We’ve been moving very fast to reform our justice system with adopting pre vetting. Our economy is very connected to that of the EU, some 2/3 of our exports go to the EU market.
We are talking as we speak with investors about developing our infrastructure, modernizing railways, building bridges, building windmills and renewable power plants and photovoltaic. So, as we speak, there is a very positive dynamic despite the stress that affects everyone on the European continent. Just a few days ago, I went on, you mentioned President Macron, and president Macron is visiting Chișinău these days, and I was on my bilateral visit to meet the French Foreign Minister a few days ago, but along this, we’re also talking concrete projects, concrete investments, there are investors willing to come and invest in Moldova because they see Moldova being on the right path, improving our governance and it’s a good moment to come into Moldova because we have a good future in the EU.
BBC Stephen Sackur: Well, on that note, Deputy Prime Minister, we must leave it. But I thank you very much indeed for joining me on HARDtalk.
