Moldova and Georgia sound the alarm in the EU –

Elections in Moldova and Georgia this week are turning into a daunting reality check for the European Union as it falls further behind in its battle for influence against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For years, the EU has been confident that its liberal, democratic agenda will eventually lead Georgia and Moldova away from the Kremlin’s orbit and toward the West – a confidence bolstered by opinion polls that suggest both countries have large popular majorities for EU membership.

This week’s elections show that the EU’s optimistic vision is increasingly uncertain. Moldova voted to join the EU by the narrowest of margins on Sunday – with 50.4 percent of voters in favor – and the populist Georgian Dream party expected to win on Saturday is set to pursue an illiberal agenda that will make EU membership impossible. EU.

For the EU, the determination of its adversary in Moscow is frightening.

It is clear that the Kremlin – despite its heavy commitments in Ukraine – is still willing to pour a lot of money into vote-buying and disinformation campaigns to reassert its stamp on former Soviet territories. In both Moldova and Georgia, Moscow is making progress with a propaganda narrative that countries pursuing a pro-EU or NATO agenda are playing with fire by recommending neutrality as an antidote to conflict.

Read also: Moldova: The country is divided over joining the EU – Europeans celebrate, poison from Moscow

Stunned by the result, Moldova’s pro-EU president Maya Sandu complained about Russia’s “unprecedented attack on our country’s freedom and democracy”. While recent polls showed a 60 percent majority in favor of joining the bloc, for much of Sunday night into Monday it looked like the anti-EU camp would win.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was quick to point out that the tight result was the result of Russian dirty tricks and insisted that Brussels would push for Moldova to join the bloc.

“In the face of Russia’s hybrid tactics, Moldova is showing that it is independent, it is strong and it wants a European future,” he said.

But the result in Moldova reveals the limits of the EU’s influence at a time when Putin is defining himself as part of a wider anti-Western alliance.

Today, Tuesday, Putin will host Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iran’s Massoud Pezeskian and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and more than 15 other heads of state for talks in the Russian city of Kazan. Moscow has pushed for a handful of new countries to join BRICS, designed to unite developing economies to challenge Euro-American interests, and wants to use it to challenge the US dollar.

Bribes and misinformation

There is no doubt about the extent of Russian intervention in Moldova.

In a statement after the count, the head of the National Democratic Institute’s observation mission, former Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto, cited widespread efforts to undermine the process.

“The biggest threat to the integrity of these elections was a broad and coordinated campaign of malign foreign influence by Russia working with Moldovan actors through information manipulation, vote buying and other illegal financing of political activity,” he said.

Achieving even a minimum majority in that context, other observers said, was a major achievement. “The Moldovans have shown resilience in the face of unprecedented foreign intervention,” said US Congressman Peter Roskam, who led a mission of observers from the International Republican Institute.

Moldovan officials have repeatedly raised the alarm about huge amounts of Russian money funneled into the accounts of ordinary voters in the weeks leading up to the vote. Authorities accuse Moscow and its local proxies of seeking to use cash to push people to oppose EU membership and rally behind a pro-Russian challenger standing against Sadou.

“We are talking about up to 20 percent of corrupt votes and an estimated 150 million euro interference operation from Russia,” said Valeriu Pasha, program director at the Moldova-based think-tank WatchDog.MD Community. “Without this massive vote bribery the result would have looked completely different. So, in these very tough circumstances, the fact that we still have a yes majority is already a very good result.”

Based on the same model

Speaking to POLITICO ahead of Sunday’s vote, former Moldovan Foreign Minister Nikos Popescu said the referendum was called to “clarify the internal debate in the country” before voters head to the polls in next year’s parliamentary elections, where Sandu and its allies face a number of pro-Russian opposition parties.

This game seems to have failed. Instead of showing unity, he created a dangerous new dividing line and convinced the Kremlin that he was paying to try to change the outcome.

“The preliminary election results highlight the challenges Brussels faces in extending EU membership to post-Soviet countries,” said Crisis Group analyst Marta Mutsnik. “With Moldova preparing for parliamentary elections in 2025, these divisions are likely to shape the political discourse in the coming months.”

That bodes ill news for Georgia, where the Georgian Dream party is seeking a majority in Saturday’s parliamentary elections, vowing to shut out all opposition if it secures enough votes. The dramatic campaign comes amid warnings of a “occupation” of the state by Russia, which has passed restrictive Muscovite-style laws on Western-funded non-governmental organizations, the media and the LGBTI community.

Read also: EE calls on Georgia to withdraw bill that restricts LGBTI+ rights

“It’s time for Western politicians to realize that Russia’s war is not limited to Ukraine — but across the democratic world that Moscow can influence,” said Ivana Stradner of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. “And while risk-averse European and American officials are thinking in terms of individual tactics, Putin has a whole strategy he’s using to try to win.”

For Sandu, it’s not just the EU candidate nations — or just the smaller ones — that should be worried.

Everyone is at risk.

“It is true that you can damage the democratic process in a small country more easily,” the Moldovan president argued. “But once these practices are tested in smaller countries, they can be tested in other countries.”

Source: Politico

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