Dionis Cenusa Profile picture
Apr 14 8 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
#Moldova: The fugitive businessman, hiding in Israel, Ilan Shor, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. Some reflections: 1) An amount of approximately 250 million euros of his property in assets or money can be confiscated;⤵️
2) The Moldovan side expects him to be arrested by Interpol or even to serve his sentence in Israel (highly unlikely); 3) The exponents of the ruling party are using this episode to show that justice is giving results;⤵️
4) Fighting grand corruption is something that the ruling party promised to be elected. This is also part of the preconditions for accession to the EU; 5) The law was modified last year to be able to issue sentences in absentia.⤵️
A similar approach is expected in the trial against fugitive oligarch Plahotniuc; 6) Shor has his own agenda that overlaps with Russia's. Shor wants impunity and to achieve it he seeks to provoke early elections at all costs. This serves Russia's objectives;⤵️
7) It's hard to know if Shor's sentence will influence his party's ability to organize protests and mobilize people; 8) The ruling party needs some sort of success before the EU begins assessing pre-accession conditions;⤵️
9) The ruling party through state institutions, at the request of the president, is organizing a rally on the main square of Chisinau on May 21. The ruling party says that people will come on their own and will not be transported. Having 50,000 involved in a demonstration can⤵️
only be achieved through organized activities; 10) Polls show only ~24% support for the ruling party. According to the latest polls, the main Socialist and Communist opposition parties have 17%.⤵️ Image
If the Shor party is outlawed as the ruling party seeks to obtain in the Constitutional Court, Shor's voters will migrate to the opposition. There is a very complex local dynamic, which is highly influenced by the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

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More from @DionisCenusa

Apr 14
#EU_China: The German MFA Baerbock added the economic layer to the negative scenario conversation around Taiwan. Any kind of military escalation on the straight could potentially affect 50% of world trade. This affects 12% of freight flows from/to China and⤵️
38% to/from others (Japan, South Korea, etc.). Major trading nations will suffer losses, especially Germany that traded with China goods worth almost €300 billion worth of goods (2022). China was the 4th market for German exports in 2022 (113 billion euros), ⤵️
followed by the US, France and the Netherlands. A war in the Taiwan Straits will have consequences for both China and the rest of the world, unless Beijing is preparing for a blitzkrieg (which is something Russia failed against Ukraine).⤵️
Read 5 tweets
Apr 14
#Armenia: The Russian MFA criticized the recently launched EU mission in Armenia, accusing it of being a source of destabilization. Reacting to this, the Secretary of National Security of Armenia, Grigoryan, clarified that the EU mission is considered a source of security.⤵️
Grigoryan noted that although the Russian military base has been present in Armenia since the 1990s, destabilization episodes occurred regularly. More importantly, the Armenian official explained that the EU mission is not an attempt to change the country's external vector.⤵️
Because Russian security guarantees are an ineffective deterrent against Azerbaijan's military posture, Armenia was forced to seek alternative sources of security guarantees. Even if in the short term, the EU mission is far from triggering a FP review of Armenia. However,⤵️
Read 5 tweets
Apr 13
#Ukraine: Russia threatens not to stick to the grain deal after May 18 if 5 conditions are not met. Neither the EU nor Ukraine will agree to meet most of these conditions: 1) reconnect Rosselhozbank to Swift; 2) lift sanctions on exports to Russia of agricultural equipment and⤵️
maintenance services; 3) resume access of Russian ships to EU ports; 4) resume the export of ammonia from Russia to the port of Odesa in Ukraine; 5) unfreeze the accounts of all Russian companies involved in the production and export of fertilizers.⤵️
Russia did not say what it intends to do if other parties continue to implement the grain deal. Blocking the grain deal before the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg could hurt Russia's soft power diplomacy in the Global South.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 12
#Armenia_Azerbaijan: The EU mission in Armenia, launched on February 20, does not represent a way to deter military incidents on the Armenian border with Azerbaijan. It is imperative to manage expectations about the effectiveness of the EU mission to avoid ⤵️
any kind of confrontation between the two parties. Otherwise, the EU will discredit itself as an external actor that, unlike and despite Russia's security role, can bring peace and stability to the South Caucasus. With new episodes of small-scale clashes, ⤵️
while the EU mission is already on the ground, Brussels tries to persuade both sides (which is actually more related to Azerbaijan) to resume and advance the delimitation of bilateral borders. Without this, peace arrangements are unlikely.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 24
#China_CentralAsia: Beijing is working on the regional segmentation of its foreign policy very much following the Russian example. After Russia brought the 5 Central Asian nations together in Moscow, China is looking to replicate a similar format. Some would say it means⤵️
that China is filling the void left by Russia, weakened (and with serious reputation issues) from its failed aggression against Ukraine. My answer would be “yes and no”: 1) Partly due to the geopolitical and economic consequences of the Russian war against Ukraine,⤵️
Moscow has objective limitations to use the same amount of resources (mainly in reference to legitimacy and respect) , while it is just as influential in Central Asia as before. At the same time, Moscow falls short of economic capabilities to⤵️
Read 7 tweets
Mar 23
#EU_WesternBalkans: The defamation provision introduced into the penal code by the Republika Srpska legislature is jeopardizing the opening of BiH's accession negotiations with the EU. This decision would violate two of the 14 EU requirements that were preconditions for⤵️
obtaining EU candidate status, which was granted to BiH at the end of 2022. Although the EU cannot reverse the decision on candidate status, it can block the accession dialog until the pre-candidate status is implemented. The case of BiH serves as a reminder for⤵️
the govts of Moldova (9 conditions) and Ukraine (7 conditions), which must be attentive to the quality of compliance with EU requirements if they wish to open accession negotiations in the short term.⤵️
Read 4 tweets

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