Only six out of all those 23 Moldovan ambassadors accredited abroad have passed the school of the Ministry of External Affairs and know from inside what diplomatic work means. These are: Natalia Gherman (Stockholm), Eugen Karpov (Brussels), Nicolae Dudau (Rome), Igor Corman (Berlin), Eugen Revenco (Geneva) and Mihai Barbulat (Ankara). For the rest, the list of our ambassadors resembles, for the most part, an extract from the database of the members of the Communist Party and of the great servile ones of this entity. See it for yourselves: Embassy in China – Iacob Timciuc, member of the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova (CPRM); Embassy in Greece – Iulian Magaleas, member of CPRM; Embassy in Ukraine – Sergiu Stati, former Communist MP; Embassy in Belarus – Ion Filimon, member of CPRM; Mission in Strasbourg – Andrei Neguta, member of CPRM; Mission to the UN, New York – Alexei Tulbure, the one who, at the request of the Communist leadership, accused Romania of expansionism; Embassy in Turkey – Mihail Barbulat, ex-Head of the Presidential Protocol Service within Voronin’s mandate; Embassy in Bulgaria – Veaceslav Madan, ex-Minister of Culture in the communist mandate, the one who authorized the re-erection of Lenin’s monument in Balti; Embassy in the Kingdom of Belgium – Victor Gaiciuc, ex-Minister of Defense in Tarlev-I Government; Moldovan Embassy in Austria – Ambassador Victor Postolachi, ex-Deputy Minister of Reintegration in the Communist Government; Embassy in the Russian Federation – Vasile Sturza, ex-representative of President Voronin in the negotiations with Transnistria; Embassy in Great Britain – Mariana Durlesteanu, ex-Deputy Minister of Finance in Tarlev-I Government; Embassy in Germany – Igor Corman, ex-employee at the Ministry of External Affairs; Embassy in France – Victoria Iftodi, ex-Minister of Justice in Tarlev-II Government; Embassy in Italy – Nicolae Dudau, ex-Minister of External Affairs in Tarlev-I Government; Embassy in Poland – Boris Gamurari, ex-Minister of Defense; Embassy in Romania – Lidia Gutu, ex-MP of the Braghis Group; Embassy in Sweden – Natalia Gherman, Ambassador in Austria; Embassy in Israel – Larisa Miculet, Prosecutor; Embassy in the USA – Nicolae Chirtoaca, employee of the Information Service of the USSR during 1977-1990; Embassy in Hungary – Valeriu Bobutac, ex-Minister of Economy; Permanent Mission of Moldova to the UN in Geneva - Eugen Revenco; Mission to the EU, Brussels – Eugen Karpov, Ambassador. (We found the list of embassies at www.migratie.md. The website of the Ministry of External Affairs has been deactivated for two weeks.)
In the Republic of Moldova, which is a parliamentary state (!), it is the country’s president who appoints the ambassadors. The diplomat candidatures are proposed by the government, which, of course, recommends personnel after Voronin’s likeness. The Information and Security Service (ISS) also has a weighty word to say both in the appointment of ambassadors and selection of staff. It is not mandatory that the ambassador or another diplomat from the embassy be an employee of the security. It is important that ISS confirmed that the X person is tolerated by the security.
Ambassadors that do not speak English
And if professionalism and the ability to protect and promote the country’s interest are last among the priorities in the appointment of ambassadors, we have got the results we have. Iulian Magaleas, the Moldovan ambassador in Athens, as he shut his mouth up when he was a Communist MP, so is he keeping it now. He does not speak English, although this is one of the obligatory conditions in the appointment of ambassadors, nor Greek; he does not go to receptions, nor organizes press conferences, and is not known by the Greek authorities. When asked “What results have you registered in your activity of ambassador?”, Iu. Magaleas answered: “I am sorry, but I would not like to do this now. I cannot do it when I am busy with a lot of things”. We would like to point out that we approached Magaleas during a break of the Ambassadors Reunion, which took place in Chisinau on 24-27 July inst. The ambassador was sitting in a corner of the room, far away from his colleagues, and did not seem “busy with a lot of things”. “Unfortunately, I cannot say I speak English well. It is hard for me but I study it. I already communicate in Bulgarian with the Sofia dignitaries. Of course, I speak it (hmmmm) with some mistakes”, the Moldovan Ambassador in Bulgaria, V. Madan, told us. “The language is not a problem, it can be learned”, this is how Boris Gamurari justified his lack of knowledge of foreign languages before the Parliamentary Commission for External Policy when he received its no-objection. When asked by us whether he spoke a foreign language, N. Dudau, Ambassador in Rome, replied: “English, Italian ‘service’ me well and this is enough”. You can conclude yourselves what English or Italian the ex-Minister of External Affairs, Dudau, speaks, if he cannot express himself properly even in Romanian… Nor do Iacob Timciuk, Ion Filimon and Andrei Neguta speak English.
Mission’s driver edited English language correspondence
As the best English speaker is known Natalia Gherman, Ambassador in Stockholm, who also speaks well German and French. Mariana Durlesteanu, Ambassador in Great Brittain, also speaks English well. In her case, however, the English language sometimes… escapes her lips. In a meeting with a British journalist who was planning a visit to Chisinau, M. Durlesteanu recounted all her personal life. The journalist was put out by this undiplomatic gesture of the ambassador in London. And if our ambassadors do poorly in what concerns the communication in English, then they would fail right away the “writing” test in English or in the language of their country of residence. For instance, it was once being practiced at our mission in Brussels that the mission’s driver would edit the letters subsequently to be sent on behalf of the embassy. It is true that the driver was studying for a Master’s degree at the Brussels University.
The big absentees
Our ambassadors are in the habit of not going to official meetings not only for lack of knowledge of foreign languages, but also because they do not master well certain economic or political subjects either from the country to which they are accredited or from the one they represent. Even if they do go, they take another person along, usually from the ministry. For example, the ex-ambassador in Kiev, Mihail Laur, was taking along Ion Stavila, Counsellor at the Embassy, ex-Deputy Minister of External Affairs, to any meeting, formal or informal. Stavila was the one to answer the questions and offer the requested information, while Laur was playing rather a decorative role. A big absentee was also Mihai Manoli, recently recalled from the Embassy to the USA. As we found out, he had ignored many international conferences and round tables on the Transnistrian subject, which were organized in Washington D.C. On the other hand, these important for Moldova events were honored with the presence of the Romanian and Ukrainian ambassadors, and sometimes even of the US ambassador to Moldova. “In 2004-2006, the “Moldova” Foundation organized in Washington D.C. eight conferences and round tables on the subject of the Republic of Moldova. Half of them were not attended by representatives of the Moldovan Embassy, although they had been invited and even asked to take the floor. Nor were other presentations on Moldova’s subject, organized by The Atlantic Council of the United States, Radio Free Europe, Center for Strategic and International Studies, attended by the Embassy people”, stated for CIN the Head of the “Moldova” Foundation, Vlad Spanu, diplomat in two terms at the Moldovan Embassy to the USA. The attempts to establish cooperation between “Moldova” Foundation and the Embassy failed, too. “The limit was when we heard that Mr. M. Manoli called, in spring 2006, the Moldova group from Washington D.C., initiated by “Moldova” Foundation and Open Society Institute in 2004, part of which are three former American ambassadors, an anti-Moldovan and anti-governmental group”, V. Spanu seemed surprised and explained such a behavior in this way: “by misinforming the Chisinau authorities about our activity, the Moldovan ambassador attempted to camouflage the embassy’s inactivity in the period when he was head of the mission. The inactivity reflects the level of professionalism in diplomacy, the knowledge of English and the personal relations with the American establishment”.
Wine crisis – ignored
Diplomacy experts think that an embassy’s efficiency can be measured by the level of visibility of its activity in the academic and business circles, think tanks, and by the intensity of the official and unofficial dialogue with the state structures from the country of residence and the diplomatic missions from other states. When analyzed by these rigors, we can conclude, with small exceptions, that our embassies just hang about. This was especially visible when Russia imposed an embargo on the import of Moldovan wines and increased the price of the imported gas. Why did the European and US political environments speak only about Georgia and Ukraine and almost not at all about Moldova? Because the necessary information was not provided by those who were supposed to do so. Because the Moldovan diplomats do not speak English, do not know how to present the information and are afraid of the additional questions they may be asked on this subject. In this crisis situation for the Moldovan economy, our ambassadors did not request meetings with the ministries of external affairs of the countries to which they are accredited or with other influential persons, but sent their secretaries to present Moldova’s official viewpoint. The secretaries were, of course, met by officers of their level, and thus, the seriousness of the situation was minimized, the created impression being that this was not a problem for Moldova. The reporters of “Le Monde” and “Le Figaro”, two of the Paris important publications acknowledged, in a discussion with the Moldovan journalists, that the representatives of the Georgian and Ukrainian embassies communicate often with the French journalists; they invite them to the embassy, to restaurants, make statements. While those of the Moldovan Embassy are amorphous in comparison with their colleagues from the same country. When an embargo was imposed on the import of Georgian and Moldovan wines into Russia, the Georgian diplomats organized press conferences, accompanied by wine tasting. The Moldovan ambassadors, however, preferred to remain in the shadow, thus letting it be understood that this problem did not affect much the country’s economy. Even the Armenian ambassador in Paris organized two press conferences in only a month, one of which referred to the relations between Georgia and Russia and their consequences for Armenia. Whereas our ex-ambassador to Paris, Andrei Neguta, organized just two press conferences during 2.5 years, one of which had as subject the victory of the Communist Party in the 2005 parliamentary elections.
(In next issue, you will find out how public funds are managed in our embassies)