Elections last weekend in two Eastern European nations, Bulgaria and Moldova, installed two pro-Russian presidents. It raises the question of the impact in Europe possibly brought about by the election of Donald Trump in the United States.
Bulgaria, population 7 million, is a member of both NATO and the European Union. It elected Rumen Radev president, leading to the resignation of its prime minister, Boyko Borisov, and prompting parliamentary elections for the spring. Bulgaria was the closest Eastern European member of both the Soviet Union’s military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, and COMECON, its economic union, prior to the breakup of the USSR. Bulgaria’s ties to Russia can be close, based on the Orthodox faith of both, language similarities including the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, natural trade and the 1878 liberation by Russia of Bulgaria from hundreds of years of Turkish rule.
Nonetheless, both the EU and NATO have made a mighty effort to draw Bulgaria in.
Moldova, population 3 million, is not in NATO or the EU, although it was previously trying to join the EU and the United States was courting it with Ukraine for NATO. It is small and borders on Romania and Ukraine. Its pro-Russian president, Igor Dodon, won the runoff election. Moldova is poor and corrupt, and, despite that, Russia would like it to join its Eurasian Customs Union.
The tough question for Europe and the United States now is whether Trump’s victory and his and his supporters’ ties to and professed admiration for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, are changing voters’ calculations. Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and Moldova may be looking at the EU’s problems, the election of Trump and the possible change in U.S. policy toward Russia that his advent as president could bring and recalculate their own prospects and direction.
Both Bulgaria and Moldova are idiosyncratic, with particular national histories and circumstances. But both held reasonably democratic elections and the results were what they were — two pro-Russian presidents, Radev and Dodon, neither of whom is likely to be particularly susceptible to American guidance, as opposed to Putin’s.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
