The subject of GUUAM has been in the focus of attention of several American academic research centers for more than a year now. After a conference on this topic in May 2000 on the Capitol Hill, under the aegis of Senator Gordon Smith, the GUUAM Ambassadors were invited to speak at special workshops covering multi-faceted interaction within the group, organized at the Universities of Saint-Louis, Stanford and recently of Harvard. We hope that the present discussion will bring even more visibility to our group in Washington, contributing, at the same time to the process of self-identification in which GUUAM is still involved, more then four years after our Presidents for the first time laid out the objectives for the group. This is only normal, given that the GUUAM initiative is part of the geopolitical reassessment process in a bigger region that brings together Europe and Eurasia, former Soviet Union and EU and NATO members and aspirants.

Moldova is one of the co-founders of GUUAM and still remains an inalienable player in the group. At the beginning of this year our country went through a period of political changes. As the new leadership was reassessing its priorities and orientations, various declarations were made at different levels, mostly under the pressure of the political moment. Based on this, several political analysts were rather pessimistic on Moldova’s future within the GUUAM. But the Yalta GUUAM Summit reiterated Moldova’s leadership commitment to the group and underscored our political will to actively promote its objectives.

It is obvious that for our countries regional cooperation is a vital necessity, since we are all part of the process of globalization and at the same we are going through a difficult period of transition. But for a regional cooperation to be effective, it has to be focused on real cooperation projects and ideas. Therefore Moldova’s approach to cooperation within GUUAM was formulated by President Voronin in Yalta as a pragmatic one, based on the realistic assessment of our needs and oriented toward identifying the best ways to overcome social and economic challenges that are common for all the GUUAM member states.

Among GUUAM objectives, Moldova emphasizes the necessity to enhance the economic cooperation, concentrating on the big projects building on the advantages of our geographic position, our economic specifics. Many transnational projects are to be considered in this respect as a common ground for cooperation: the East-West transportation corridor, formerly known as the Silk Road is probably the most general framework - Moldova is interested in all the three main directions of its development: transportation infrastructure (TRACECA), telecommunications (“Silksat”) and, first and foremost, the East-West energy corridor. The geographical situation of the GUUAM countries makes them a very efficient route for transporting the Caspian oil and gas toward Europe. Our country is situated in the proximity to big European consumers. The role of Moldova as a transit country could be significant. It is important that our cooperation materializes in common approaches to this matter that would include Moldova in the big energy production and transportation projects. Both our Government and our business people are very interested in energy resources processing and transportation opportunities. At the same time, diversifying the energy supply sources is one of the most important elements of the economic security of our countries.

As for Moldova, it means first of all ensuring the proper control of our borders. The separatist regime of the breakaway region of Transnistria creates a zone of economic irresponsibility, smuggling and trafficking that drains away the resources from our budget. This is why we are very interested in developing common projects on border control with our GUUAM partners, working especially on enforcing our Eastern border. In this respect, I would like to mention the importance of the Defense and Security Assistance Act passed by the US Senate in 2000, providing more then 45 mil. $ for our countries: a significant part of it could be used for common projects on border protection and control enhancement. Unfortunately, nothing of this money has been appropriated so far; we think that it would make sense for the GUUAM countries to formulate our needs in this field, to come up with specific projects that could be backed up by real money. This could also be a combined financial effort of the US and EU, since human, drug and arms trafficking, organized crime poses a real threat to the regional and global security.

Improving border control doesn’t mean at all closing our borders to trade. In Yalta Moldova fully supported the project free trade zone among GUUAM countries. As President Voronin stated, creation of a free trade zone is not a political gesture, but a realistic approach based on the interest of our countries and contributing to their economic development. Moldova will closely follow the preparation of the Free trade zone agreement, since we understand the big responsibility that lies on our Governments for that agreement to be really efficient.

It is also important to bear in mind that Moldova has lately made significant steps toward achieving its strategic goal of integration into EU. After being accepted to the WTO, Moldova has become a full fledged member of the Stability Pact for the Southeastern Europe and intends to actively participate in the various programs developed under this initiative in the fields of economic development, human rights, border control, etc. Moldova is the only member of the GUUAM group being in the Stability Pact, as well as in the South European Cooperation Initiative (SECI). The fact that Moldova has been invited, together with Ukraine, to attend the European Conference, is a token of the recognition of progresses made by our country in getting closer to political, economic and legislative standards applied to EU aspirants. Moldova has reached a new level of economic cooperation with Brussels, by signing a trade agreement. All these steps imply commitments and obligations towards partners within the aforementioned organizations, which are to be carefully taken into consideration when it comes to undertaking new commitments. At the same time Moldova’s advance in the European integration process opens new opportunities for our GUUAM fellow countries, if correctly and meaningfully used, by conceiving a flexible and mutually beneficial common trade framework abiding by the WTO principles and non-opposed to the EU regulations.

Moldova signed in Yalta the GUUAM Charter. This important document adequately reflects the level of our partnership within the group. We value that the Charter clearly outlines the principles of our cooperation, based on the supremacy of international law. Our partnership is not supposed to generate some kind of closed and self-sufficient structure. This is why we view the cooperation within GUUAM as a part of a multi-facetted cooperation in the whole Black Sea region. We are willing to support cooperation initiatives that would come from other countries interested in using the opportunities offered by GUUAM, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Turkey, Romania, Poland, Germany and other. This spirit of openness and positive minded orientation should help us in defining the modalities of possible involvement in GUUAM activities of interested countries, for example by acquiring the status of observer.

GUUAM is still at its beginnings. It is very important that our group benefits of international support and is viewed as a factor of stability and cooperation. All of us member countries are very encouraged by the interest the United States have in supporting our group, in encouraging its movement toward concrete goals serving the development of democracy and free market in our countries. We are grateful for the interest and support shown to our group by the Department of State, the National Security Council and members of the US Congress. We count on the support from the opinion makers, policy advisers and analysts that are so well represented at today’s meeting.