ROMANIAN PRESIDENT WELCOMES MOLDOVAN YOUTH TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BUCHAREST 001092

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE DEPT FOR EUR/NCE - BILL SILKWORTH
STATE DEPT FOR EUR/UMB - COLIN FURST

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/06/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV MD RO
SUBJECT: ROMANIAN PRESIDENT WELCOMES MOLDOVAN YOUTH TO
THEIR "HOMELAND," INVITES THEM TO REUNITE INSIDE EU

REF: BUCHAREST 00980

Classified By: DCM MARK TAPLIN FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) & (D).


1. (C) Summary: In remarks to a group of visiting Moldovan
teenagers, President Basescu spoke in terms of Romania's
hopes and plans to reunite with Moldova once inside the
European Union. His statements, which included an "offer" to
Moldova to join the EU along with Romania and a promise of
more scholarships for Moldovan students and continued ease of
access to Romania after accession, raised eyebrows among many
Moldova-followers in Bucharest. MFA officials and the
Moldovan Embassy deny that the president's words reflected
any official offers or conversations between Romania and
Moldova. The European Commission delegation suggested EC
President Barosso, along with the Finnish presidency would
deliver "private" messages to President Basescu regarding his
statements. End Summary.


2. (C) Romanian President Traian Basescu announced to a group
of Moldovan students on July 1 that "Romania has offered to
the Republic of Moldova, to the Moldovan head of state, the
option to join the European Union at the same time with us."
He later added, "We are the only country, the only people
that is still divided. Germany has reunited its nation;
Romania is still divided between two countries. But, I
repeat, our reunification will take place inside the European
Union, not otherwise." He also said that once Romania accedes
to the EU, he would try to simplify the visa system for
Moldovans and "smooth the access of the citizens of Republic
of Moldova to Romanian citizenship." A translation of the
full text of his remarks, as posted in Romanian on the
Romanian presidency website (www.presidency.ro),is below in
paragraph 7.


3. (C) According to Dan Iancu, Head of the Romanian MFA
Bureau for Cooperation with Moldova, no such plan exists that
is "written on paper." Romanian officials appeared unclear
themselves over when Basescu might have pitched this idea to
Moldovan President Voronin. Both Iancu and MFA Director
General for Eastern Europe Razvan Rusu acknowledged that such
a discussion could well have taken place between the two
presidents. Iancu said that their last meeting was on
December 10, 2005, during President Voronin's trip to
Bucharest. Iancu suggested, however, that such a discussion
would have more likely happened at the first meeting between
Basescu and Voronin, in January 2005 in Chisinau. While the
two presidents did not have a bilateral meeting during the
June Black Sea Summit, he remarked, the two do talk
frequently by phone. Iancu said that Basescu's visit to
Chisinau, previously scheduled for July, would not likely
occur until after the summer. He explained that Romania's
approach to Moldova was to "attempt to build a new image for
Moldovans" as a South Eastern European state in addition to
being a CIS state. Iancu said Romanians and Moldovans would
"see each other in the EU, where borders don't matter." He
said reunification is "not something we have in mind for now."


4. (C) The European Commission Delegation in Romania had no
plans to respond to Basescu's statements on Moldova,
according to the delegation's Political Analyst Sorin Moisu.
However, he said that EC President Jose Manuel Barosso and
the Finnish EU Presidency would raise the issue privately
with Basescu. Moisu offered that the EC was still trying to
make sense of Basescu's statements, noting both the
"political and technical impossibility" of Basescu's offer
for Moldova to join the EU with Romania. Moisu believed
Russia and Ukraine would likely ask for clarification of
Basescu's comments as well.


5. (C) Moldovan DCM Larissa Pasecinic commented to PolOff
that "this is not the first such declaration," but added that
Moldova is "very grateful to Basescu" for "presenting Moldova
in international fora, making its problems more well known."
She said Basescu's formulation had been oversimplified for
his youthful audience, and was not a realistic version of any
official discussions. She said the real concern was not the
statement, but rather how it was being portrayed in the media
and how it had "triggered negative events in Transnistria."
She cited the July 5 press conference of Transnistrian
"Security Minister" Antufeyev, who cited Basescu's remarks as
a threat that required counterbalancing by supplementing the
Russian troops in the region. Pasecinic said there was "no
such official proposition from the Romanian government" and
that Moldova's "future homework for EU accession was not so
simple." Pasecinic said Basescu's offer to ease visa
requirements was akin to Moldova's current agreement with
Poland, which expedites the process for certain categories of
travelers. Pasecinic said Basescu's promise to facilitate

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Molodovan requests for Romanian citizenship was a reflection
of Romania's extremely bureaucratic system of granting
citizenship, which some Moldovans have been unable to
complete since first applying in the mid-1990s. She said it
"does not mean that everyone will be able to get Romanian
citizenship."


6. (C) Canadian Charge d' Affaires, Jean Therriault, who
covers Moldova from Bucharest, opined to PolOff that Basescu
had probably spoken "off the cuff." He noted that many
Moldovans, "not just Russian speakers, but also Romanian
speakers" as well as the current Moldovan government, did not
welcome Basescu's suggestion. Therriault felt that Basescu's
remarks reflected both his genuine belief in the eventual
prospects for a Romanian-Moldovan union within the European
Union as well as an over-eager attempt to appeal to
nationalist elements in the Romanian electorate.


7. (U) Embassy's translation of President Basescu's remarks:

The speech of Traian Basescu, President of Romania, on the
occasion of the lunch hosted for the children from the
Republic of Moldova, winners of the "Olympics" competition in
History

- Cotroceni Palace, July 1, 2006 -

Dear Sirs and Madams Professors,
Dear Children,

First of all, I would like to thank you for accepting
the invitation to have lunch with the President of Romania.
It is a great honor for me that you accepted to spend an hour
together.

At the same time, I would like you to know that I was
extremely pleased when I heard that you accepted to change
your program to accommodate this visit to Cotroceni. I hope
that the change in your program will not prevent you to
eventually visit Peles Castle - a monument worthwhile seeing
not on only for its beauty, but also for it is place in our
history, very much like Cotroceni Palace, where we are today.
Cotroceni Palace is also part of Romanian history as much as
everything else you have visited in Bucharest today.

I am glad that we can host in Bucharest very good
students, winners of the "Olympics" competition in History,
who are extremely knowledgeable in history. As good students
in history, you know that Romania has denounced the
Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which broke the Romanian nation in
two. We accept the will of the authorities from Chisinau to
stay apart from Romania, as an independent state, which
carves out its own path to its Euro-Atlantic future.

For these reasons, I was one of the politicians who
always supported the need to have a very good relationship
with the Republic of Moldova, an open relationship that might
be of help in assisting to speed-up the steps taken by the
Republic of Moldova, to be able, in the not so distant
future, to get again together, this time inside the European
Union.

I would like you to know from me something that I would
like to tell you -- to the extent I can tell you this -- that
Romania has offered to the Republic of Moldova, to the
Moldovan head of state, the option to join the European Union
at the same time with us. It is however the decision of the
authorities from Chisinau and of the people of the Republic
of Moldova.

For me, your visit to Bucharest is a very important
fact and it is in our policy to create conditions for as many
children from the Republic of Moldova to come and study in
Romania. Certainly next year we will increase the number of
students from the Republic of Moldova who will be accepted as
students in Romanian universities.

I ask you to be convinced that, when Romania will be a
EU member, we will do whatever is necessary to prevent the
border from becoming an impenetrable barrier for the citizens
of the Republic of Moldova, and especially for the young
people who really want to study (in Romania).

I believe the cultural links, the links between our
national educational units, are instrumental in maintaining
for the years to come the links between two countries that
were once one country. We are the only country, the only
people that is still divided. Germany has reunited its
nation; Romania is still divided in two countries. But, I

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repeat, our unification will take place inside the European
Union, not otherwise.

I thank you very much. I want to assure you that
Romania will continue in the future to create conditions for
the young people from the Republic of Moldova to learn and
study in Romania to become useful in their country.

I want you also to know that immediately after our
integration into the EU, in agreement with the European
Commission, we will try to put in place a simplified visa
system for the Republic of Moldova and, at the same time, to
smooth the access of the citizens of Republic of Moldova to
Romanian citizenship.

I thank you very much, I wish you bon appetite and I
assure you that you are always welcomed in Romania, in other
words welcomed in your own homeland.

Thank you very much!

End Translation.


8. (C) Comment: Basescu's formulations on Moldova at the July
1 event went beyond previous statements he has made on the
subject of the two countries' relationship. While he first
raised the notion of a reunited Romania and Moldova within an
expanded European Union in January in front of an audience of
foreign diplomats, Saturday's media event was the first time
Basescu has spoken in public of an "offer" for Moldova to
join the European Union alongside Romania. On one level, it
was a characteristic unscripted Basescu moment, the kind that
makes his communications advisor cringe. Foreign Minister
Ungureanu told the Ambassador around the margins of the July
4th reception that he had heard Basescu on one occasion raise
the idea with Voronin of entering the EU together, but
insisted that the Romanian president had presented it in a
light vein. In fact, Basescu's apparently sincere interest
in promoting a closer relationship between the two countries
has both pluses and minuses. Since taking office, Basescu
has, by most accounts, improved the climate between the two
capitals considerably. Voronin and former Romanian president
Iliescu, both Communist-era nomenclaturists, had famously
cool relations. Bucharest has also actively campaigned
within the EU and NATO for making Moldova a bigger priority.
But as elsewhere in the Balkans, old ghosts do not simply go
away quietly in the night. The vast majority of Romanians
probably share Basescu's view that the two countries were
separated unnaturally. And one of Basescu's principal
advisors acknowledged to us privately last week that the
Romanian president's political program has been built in the
main on pounding the anti-corruption theme against the Social
Democrat opposition and stealing the thunder, if not the
extremism, of the nationalist Greater Romania party. We
believe Romania can contribute positively to regional
stability, as it has demonstrated in its Black Sea-oriented
efforts, but it needs our help in constructively directing
its energies towards the future horizon, rather than
backwards over the historical fence. End Comment.


9. Amembassy Bucharest's reporting telegrams are available on
the Bucharest SIPRNet website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/bucharest
TAUBMAN