Why Are the Brits Pessimistic about Moldova?

Monday started with two articles on Moldova in the British The Economist and Sunday Telegraph .

The Telegraph article is a variation on the same old topic: Transnistria and its role in the East-West relations, while The Economist deals with the Romanian-Moldovan relations. Perhaps the British media’s increased interest in this conflict zone is due to Moldova’s recently becoming an immediate Eastern neighbor of EU. Or, more realistically, the most recent Russian actions vis-à-vis Estonia put the decade-long Transnistrian conflict into a new perspective: Russia’s continuous interference into the internal affairs of an equally sovereign albeit much smaller and vulnerable country turned Transnistria into "an authoritarian regime under Russian occupation", "irritant to the US and the EU", "one of the worst thorns in the side of Europe and NATO", "serious political obstacle to Moldova's joining the EU". This historically-rooted mess aimed to strategically position Moscow in “some future East-West conflict”. Too bad for the half-million people living in Transnistria who are being manipulated in the worst possible way, …too bad for the other 3.5 million Moldovans who are viewed by the West as a “chunk of dirt-poor, ill-run, ex-communist nuisance”…

Although I wish something intelligent could be said to dilute the pessimistic image created by these two articles, no arguments seem to rush to mind.

Later addition It looks like The Economist is going to publish an entire series of diary-type-articles about Moldova. So much attention is really flattering :) Here you can read Tuesday part, or directly on the author's - Edward Lucas - blog .