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buildings in northern Kosovo and organising new mayoral elections. However, public boycotts of these elections have cast uncertainty on the prospects for renewed EU financing.
Meanwhile, Kosovo continues to engage in bilateral dialogues to secure full international recognition, including efforts to gain recognition from five EU member states.
1.6 Politics – Moldova
Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu secured a second term in office in 2024, and the country’s EU membership path was endorsed in a constitutional referendum. The country expects to begin accession negotiations on specific chapters in 2025. The outcomes in both the ballots were very tight, achieved amid massive propaganda conducted by the pro-Russian political block Pobeda/Victory under the coordination of the fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor from Moscow.
Despite the double win for the pro-EU authorities in 2024, the hardest part of putting the country firmly on the EU accession track is not yet over. Sandu’s pro-EU ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) still has to either preserve its majority in parliament or find partners to form a ruling majority in this year’s general election.
Russia is expected to interfere and take advantage of the electorate’s disappointment with the economic hardship and the sluggish judicial reforms, with the aim of undermining the position of the pro-EU authorities and possibly triggering a political crisis after the parliamentary elections.
Energy remains high on the political agenda in Moldova, particularly after Russia suspended its gas supplies on January 1, 2025, when Ukraine closed its main gas route to Europe. This has pushed up prices in Moldova, which already switched from Russian gas to other sources, but it triggered a humanitarian crisis in the separatist Transnistria region, which relies on Russian gas both to supply the population and to produce electricity. With the government of the unrecognised separatist republic stepping up its rhetoric against Chisinau, there are reasons to believe that the separatists may be preparing to take action to destabilise the situation within the country in 2025. After Transnistria failed to meet Russia’s expectations for more radical positioning in the conflict with Ukraine and against the pro-EU authorities in Chisinau, the separatist region was disciplined by Moscow with the gas cut and the security situation may deteriorate in the region.
14 SE Outlook 2025 www.intellinews.com