The word "denunciation" used to describe the "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact" is a bad choice. First, because Romania can't "denounce" an international agreement it did not sign. Secondly, the "Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact" is an euphemism: after all, Ribbentrop and Molotov were just the foreign ministers of Hitler and Stalin, the greatest dictators to damage Europe ever. It is actually about the "Hitler-Stalin Pact" by which the two divided Eastern Europe for themselves, charting the territories for their influence. Poland was the most harmed by this bandit-like deal as this country underwent a fourth territorial redistribution. Romania lost Basarabia, northen Bucovina, the Hertza County and two isles in the Danube Delta. The second charting of territories for influence in Eastern Europe, no less bandit-like, was the one authored by Stalin and Churchill. Remaining behind the Iron Curtain and occupied by the Red Army, Romania had no choice and it had to give up the above-mentioned territories. And a bonus was grabbed too: Insula Serpilor (Snakes Island). Once the USSR collapsed, the West's influence territory spread towards the East due to the adhesion to the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union. Both Ukraine and Russia have refused to take over the legacy and responsibilities of the USSR, still they are beneficiaries of strategic elements coming from this legacy: Russia in Kaliningrad and Transdniestria, Ukraine in Snakes Island. Basarabia was left to struggle between the NATO-EU border and the Transdniestria military base. The 1991 condemnation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and its effects by the Bucharest Parliament is enough to set Moscow on a good mood. The third Reich and the Soviet Union are history and they can be blamed for every evil in the world and they can be blackened till doomsday. But this seems to be a matter for historians, not for politicians to see to. Condemnation, denunciation or any other political action concerning the Hitler-Stalin Pact is useless, politically speaking. And it is not at all practically useful to the Romanians who live in the territory on the left bank of the Prut River. It is paradoxical that, although the initiators of the pact and the states they headed are rather long gone, the Hitler-Stalin Pact is still working. The line the two dictators drew on Eastern Europe is still working now in a way that fits the present. After grabbing Kaliningrad and Transdiestria, Moscow cares too little about Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, now in the EU, or about the poverty reigning in the country on the left bank of the Prut River. The Chishinau screams expressing faith can hardly find anyone to listen to them, for the Russians can do without Moldovan wine. One more solemn condemnation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in the Parliament can be but ridiculous and pointless. The still persisting line won't be moved, for it is much too convenient to the great ones, who don't give a penny on Romanian ideals. But there is great need of a survey to explain what the red plague's invasion of Basarabia, Bucovina and Hertza County meant to Romanians, together with the lots of assassinations, rapes, thefts and deportations. "Cursed be us, unless we fight!" It was Nicolae Iorga who said it during that Crown Council when they decided to surrender to the threatening USSR colossus. The curse can be broken by unlocking the process meant to bring Romanian citizenship back. It would be the only efficient means to do away with the effects of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

George DAMIAN