ROMAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR ILINOIU

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHISINAU 000819

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/UMB

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/16/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PBTS EAID PINR MD RO
SUBJECT: ROMAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR ILINOIU
SUPPORTS DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT IN MOLDOVA

Classified by: Ambassador Asif J. Chaudhry for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: On October 12, U.S. Ambassador to
Romania and U.S. Ambassador to Moldova (who was
visiting Bucharest) met with Anca Ilinoiu, Foreign
Policy Counselor to President Basescu. Ilinoiu
explained that Moldova was a very important
foreign policy priority for Romania. She noted
that Romania favored a western-looking government
in Moldova, and now, with the Alliance of European
Integration at the helm, had an opportunity to
provide support for such an endeavor, and planned
to do so.


2. (C) Ilinoiu was disappointed by the weak
support the EU was showing for the new government.
She said that Romania was planning its own
assistance and in the coming days would announce
energy support for Moldova, providing electricity
by linking the two grids. She noted how important
assistance would be for keeping the new pro-
Western government afloat, and argued that success
for the Alliance would be a geo-political success
for the West. This cable was cleared by
Ambassador Gitenstein.

End Summary.

Fears Ukrainianization of Moldova
--------------


3. (C) Though Ilinoiu was pleased with the
Alliance's Western-looking orientation, she
expressed some concerns about problems within the
Alliance, particularly the problems between
Presidential-hopeful Lupu and Prime Minister
Filat. She was also very critical of
Parliamentary Speaker Ghimpu, who she thought was
making the Alliance look bad internationally.
Ilinoiu believed that Ghimpu's mistakes in running
the Parliament were hurting the Alliance and could
even be challenged in Constitutional Court. She
suggested that as we consider technical assistance
for Moldova, we consider legal guidance for the
Speaker in order to help him learn how to run a
parliament successfully.


4. (C) Ilinoiu perceived the power struggles and
arguments between Lupu and Filat as a potential
scenario for the "Ukrainianization" of Moldova,
i.e. a situation where after overthrowing a
Communist government, the President and Prime
Minister are then consumed by their own
internecine rivalries and cannot work together.
She thought that this would serve Russia's
purposes in Moldova. On the other hand, she
argued, our efforts have to be aimed at preventing
any growing mistrust between the leaders.

Assistance to Moldova Critical; EU Disappointing
-------------- ---


5. (C) Ilinoiu raised the recent (September 29-30)
visit of Prime Minister Filat and Foreign Minister
Leance to Brussels, noting her disappointment with
the lack of EU support for Moldova. In
comparison, she praised the US assistance effort,
particularly the timing of our MCC announcement
just after the new government was in place.
Ilinoiu thought that bilateral assistance for
Moldova was absolutely critical at this time. She
expressed the hope that both the EU as an
organization and the individual member countries
bilaterally would do more to assist Moldova.


6. (C) Ilinoiu expressed mistrust of European
Union Special Representative Kalman Mizsei, saying
that she was concerned about the nature of his
relations with Russia. Ilinoiu thought Mizsei
might be feeding bad information to Solana, and
thus Solana is not getting the right message. She
expects to see a change in the Special
Representative's position soon, putting someone
"more attuned with the EU" into the job.


7. (C) Noting how important assistance would be
for keeping the new Alliance government afloat,
Ilinoiu expressed some disappointment that up to
this point only Poland had stepped forward with a

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specific pledge of assistance to Moldova, and
hoped that others would do so too. Ilinoiu said
that the Government of Romania was considering a
significant amount of assistance. Without naming
a specific dollar figure, she said they were
thinking of something significantly more than what
Poland was giving.


8. (C) Ilinoiu hoped that Western partners would
not be waiting for political stability in order to
provide assistance, but rather thought that the
West should provide assistance to help create
political stability. She noted that the stability
and success of the Alliance would depend upon
their gaining complete control over key government
institutions. She lamented that sometimes Western
partners do not understand that simply taking over
the Prime Minister's seat does not mean real
authority unless there is control over such
institutions as the Prosecutor General's Office,
the National Bank, the Security organs (SIS),and
the media.

Romania to Provide Energy Assistance
--------------


9. (C) Ilinoiu indicated that part of Romanian
assistance to Moldova could be in the form of
energy support for the winter. She said that
Romania had surplus electricity which could easily
be provided to Moldova. Providing energy
assistance would help in getting through the
winter cold. Even more significantly, energy
would help Moldova avoid vulnerability to Russian
blackmail that results from complete energy
dependence upon Russian gas. However, she noted,
Romania was still trying to figure out the best
way to connect to the Moldovan electricity grid.


10. (C) Ilinoiu said that an announcement of
Romanian's energy assistance for Moldova could
come within the next week to ten days. However,
it would still require some investment to actually
connect the two systems before the electricity
could flow. Noting Romania needed to come up with
some hard cash to do this, she asked if MCC could
be used for that purpose. Ambassador Chaudhry
explained that the MCC Compact will support other
programs, but noted that USAID has looked at the
issue of connectivity between Moldovan and
European energy grids. He mentioned two USAID
experts who had carried out this study and would
be available to provide advice on how to
accomplish this safely and quickly.


11. (C) Ilinoiu noted that Moldova also needed to
get independence from the Russian gas lines. She
mentioned the possibility of using the "Pan-Arab"
pipeline which brings gas from Egypt (NFI).

Cultural Support for Moldova
--------------


12. (C) With respect to cultural support for
Moldova, there was a common understanding between
the two Ambassadors and the Presidential advisor
on the need to find a way to change people's
mindset to think westward. Ambassador Chaudhry
proposed that one way to do this would be to
introduce English-language films with Romanian-
language subtitles, (which are already available
in Romania) to the Moldovan market. The group
agreed to explore that possibility.


13. (C) Ilinoiu mentioned efforts being made to
introduce Romanian television to the Moldovan
audience. She mentioned one program, Realitate,
which she compared to a Romanian version of CNN,
which was looking for ways to expand its coverage
to a broader audience in Moldova.


14. (C) Ultimately, Ilinoiu linked the success of
the Alliance to the overall geo-political success
of the European Union and the West, saying that
whatever happened in Moldova could be a model. If
a successful transition could be made to a stable,
western-style government, that same model for
transition could be used for Ukraine in the coming
Ukrainian elections.


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Ready to Move Forward on Border Agreements
--------------


15. (C) Ilinoiu said that the Romanian government
was looking into entering into a border agreement
which would provide the possibility of up to 50
kms of easier access and other border
arrangements. Such an agreement would help pave
the way for opening the consulates on both sides
which have been promised for some time but remain
stalled.


16. (C) Ilinoiu also alluded to the willingness of
the Romanian government to work out a border
agreement with Moldova. She chose her words very
carefully, not to give the impression she was
saying a "border treaty" but saying that they were
willing to sign a "trans-border treaty."

Important to Help Gagauzia
--------------


17. (C) She thought that the West needed to pay
very special attention to Gagauzia, because
Gagauzia had the potential for the Communists to
use it to create cultural tensions. Fearing the
Communists could exploit ethnic and pro-Russian
linguistic sentiment to build a stronghold in
Gagauzia, she encouraged Ambassador Chaudhry to
visit Gagauzia as often as possible and start
looking at Gagauzia as a potential place for
assistance activities. The Ambassador briefed
her on some USG efforts to provide assistance to
Gagauzia, including a project by Engineers without
Borders and North Carolina guards to provide
assistance to schools in Gagauzia.

Comment
--------------


18. (C) Ilinoiu's concern for Moldova was
impressive. She clearly wishes to see her eastern
neighbor making the right steps towards developing
in a Western-looking democratic way. However, she
is concerned that the democratic institutions in
Moldova and the capacities of the Alliance are
still relatively weak. Both will need
encouragement and financial support from the West
to ensure their viability in the long run. In
that effort, Romanian interests in Moldova seem to
coincide with our own, and many of the desires
expressed for coordination and support are exactly
in line with our own goals. It is clear that a
visible demonstration of support for Moldova's
democracy at a high political level in the US and
EU is desirable.


19. (C) We note that her comments reflected her
bias for Prime Minister Filat's positions. It
seems her understanding of the personalities
within the Alliance reflect his biases. We were
surprised about the extent to which she was
critical of Ghimpu, given his long-term position
as the traditional pro-Romanian unionist. Despite
the image in Moldova (particularly among
Communists) of Romanian support for integration,
there was no apparent hint of a pro-integration
policy. Quite the opposite, her conversation
clearly indicated a desire to support the
sovereignty of Moldova as separate pro-Western
state and help it join the European Union.

CHAUDHRY