Microstates flourish because big countries need them Edward Lucas Rich and powerful people in Russia and Ukraine clearly find the "Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic"—more commonly known as Transdniestria—a useful entity. If they didn't, they would close it down. That is something that the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and others like to point out in a finger-wagging kind of way.
( Europe.view column of April 9, 2009 from Economist.com.)
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