The Bucharest-Moscow axis

How much did the Romanian people decay if a banal phone call made by the President of Romania to the Prime Minister of Russia created a serious national concussion and an entire TV analysis?

The sensational part of the conversation between the Romanian Head of State and the Head of the Russian Government (Mr. Putin called on all countries buying Russian gas that transits Ukraine) is the ease with which the first gave up on "great friend" Iushchenko, with whom he had come from the American Orange Egg, just to board himself on the Russian Gas Ship.

Mr. Putin called the Romanian counterpart of Mr. Medvedeev to inform him that the lack of delivery of gas was not caused by Ukraine. In a press release, the Presidency omitted to say that Traian Basescu was not the only one called by Mr. Putin and said that we were offered Russian Gas at the price of 250 USD per 1000 cubic meters. We would have been able to sell it back to Ukraine at the "market price". What would that price be as long as there is no gas exchange market and the source is quasi-monopolistic? However, the difference between the purchase price and the sale price is equivalent to the deal on the day in which Judas received money in exchange for his famous delivery contract.

It is true that Ukraine made mistakes. It relied on its deposits and it got locked in the internal struggles between different interest groups that wanted to share the occult earnings resulting from the non-transparent movement of gas and it confronted Russia. It was sure of the automatic solidarity of the West and it hoped that, as a victim, it will persuade an EU under the siege of "General Winter" to open its doors. Things didn't go as they planned. Perhaps it was because of the change in administration in the USA that made Kiev miss an efficient support. For the first time after the "orange revolution", the foreign accusations against it equaled those against Moscow.

Russia, in its turn, sick of seeing how, in any dispute with Ukraine, the Euro-Atlantic world is on the side of the former soviet country, decided to play the hard way to determine the EU to conclude that the regime in Kiev is the problem. This is how Russia got to a convenient solution in its dispute with the Occident regarding the geo-political statute of Ukraine. Well played, but, like any other time, Moscow doesn't know when to stop.

The minor interests of Traian Basescu appear in this major battle. After he was no more than an echo of the American critics against Kremlin, now, he wants to gain votes by calming the fright of Russia by suggesting a deal between the Romanian President and the Russian PM. After expressly asking the Europeans to grant Ukraine a place in NATO, he suggests that the gas problem comes from Kiev and wants to offer Moscow the key to solve this situation.

Supporting Ukraine from the perspective of the growth in confrontational potential with Russia was a tactical error. Abandoning Ukraine to obtain Russia's sympathy is a strategic error. The Washington-Bucharest Axis idea secured by adopting the American neo-conservationism and neo-liberalism in Romania was a crime. Designing a Moscow - Bucharest Axis, guaranteed by a new Constitution that would create a Romanian presidential republic of the Putin type is much more than that. It is a mistake! Maybe the last one.