Moldova joins Ukraine on path to becoming EU member

For everyone from Moldova to Ukraine, Tuesday 25 June will be a momentous occasion, as the EU begins years of negotiations aimed at bringing the two countries back as peer partners.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu, a leading proponent of the EU’s direction, has set 2030 as a goal to strengthen the EU, although her country faces a longer and more difficult transition than the club. Is.

Chisinau has the structure of a European city. Young musicians sing Whitney Houston’s “I Won’t Dance with Someone” outside a stylish restaurant as Moldovans walk by. However the city’s structures will remind you of Tsarist, Romanian and Soviet productions for its colorful bounty.

Moldova’s population of 2.6 million is insignificant in EU terms, and one in five live in the capital.

However, Maya Sandu enjoys a prominent status among EU leaders, not least for her fluency in English and French. She gloats about the grandeur of the economic system and travels to EU summits in denim and running shoes.

You might be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t believe that their actions against the EU are linked to the conflict in neighboring Ukraine.

One of the poorest countries in Europe, Moldova is located between Ukraine and Romania. It is plagued with corruption and much of it is derived from remittances from its huge Indian diaspora in the EU.

And that connection with what remains of Europe is important, despite efforts by Russia to discredit it.

When President Sandu signed a decree giving final impetus to EU accession negotiations, he called for Moldova to become part of a “strong, united Europe”.

Although the Kremlin recognized that Moldova was an independent entity in the past, its “future interests” should also be linked to Russian markets and “integration processes” of the former Soviet dimension.

Despite its Romanian-speaking majority, Moldova is a former Soviet republic and its Japanese shore is home to a far-right pro-Moscow separatist patch known as Transnistria. When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, within days Kiev closed its 452 km (280 mi) border with Transnistria.

The Russian military has never ceased to exist since the dissolution of the USSR, and this patch is a reminder of Moscow’s long arm over its former republics.

As soon as he signed the Supreme Pace order, President Sandu would have taken a clear part in the two major votes in October. Now not only is she fighting for re-election in the presidential elections, but a referendum is being organized to ensure her country’s passage to the EU club in the Charter.

His country is divided between pro- and anti-EU camps and his biggest obstacle is Transnistria.

Pro-government MP Ozu Nantoi believes the disease cannot be cured in a single day, although now that the Ukrainian border is closed, he is positive.

“We have the ability to put pressure on this separatist regime,” he told the BBC. “Joint Moldovan-Ukrainian customs control is carried out at the Kysiurgan border crossing point, so Transnistria has become an enclave.”

Before joining the EU, Moldova must sign up to comprehensive democratic and judicial guarantees, and Valeriu Renita, an opposition journalist from the pro-Russian party Sansa (The Chance), says Chisinau is failing to do so.

He advised the BBC, “The government has shut down 13 TV networks, 30 websites, judicial reform is going badly – ​​some would say the country is a dictatorship.”

His party was barred from running in local elections last November, and Mr Renita denied allegations that Moldova’s opposition was following Moscow’s orders.

At the center of Russia’s alleged attempt to destabilize Moldova is one man: fugitive industrialist multi-millionaire Ilan Shor, who was convicted in absentia five years ago of embezzling $1 billion from Moldovan banks.

Shor, who now holds Israeli citizenship in addition to Russian, now works out of Moscow as a contingency coordinator for anti-EU and pro-Russian forces in Moldova. Pro-Russian groups recently held a congress in Moscow and when one of the key members returned to Chisinau, the government seized more than €1m in cash.

Moldova timeline

1812 The Japanese annexed a part of the Principality of Moldova from Tsarist Russia and named it Bessarabia.

1918 As Tsarist Russia collapsed, Bessarabia became part of the Kingdom of Romania.

1940 Later blackmailed by Stalin, Romania cedes Bessarabia to the USSR. It is merging with Transnistria to reach the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia.

1991-92 Moldavia declared self-rule from the Soviet Union. Following a short-lived civil conflict, Transnistrian separatists supported by Soviet forces are deployed on the eastern side of the Dniester River.

Language is the main dividing factor here.

The Romanian/Moldovan Romanians, who constitute about 80% of Moldova’s 2.6 million citizens, no longer with Transnistria, are strongly preferred to EU integration.

The ethnic minorities, who include Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians and Gagauz and speak predominantly Russian, are opposed to it.

Moldovan officials say many of them were deeply influenced by Russia’s “information warfare”.

The Gagauz, a Turkic Christian ethnic group in a self-reliant southern part of Moldova, are led by pro-Kremlin Governor Evgenia Gutul.

She is a well-known supporter of Ilan Shor and this time Moldova’s EU ambassador Janice Mazics complained that it was impossible to negotiate with her.

Regionally, opinion polls have shown 55–65% support for the EU in the October 20 referendum. However, in the case of a population of thousands of Moldovans living and working within the EU, a certain vote becomes certain, at least for the time being.

With their votes, Maia Sandu was able to achieve complete victory in the first round of the presidential elections.

However, Russia’s influence is always present, whether it’s the war in neighboring Ukraine or the fake news that appears on TikTok or Telegram.

So much so that the federal government in Chisinau fears Moscow could try to incite violence before the October referendum.

President Sandu has already been caught in a deep-fake video, which depicts a military camp for Moldovan youth.

Galina Vasilieva, who edits the Romanian and Russian-language news page Newsmaker, says these are hidden means through which Moldovans are most vulnerable to propaganda.

“In the 2016 presidential election there was a fake clip claiming that Maya Sandu had agreed with EU leaders to accept Syrian refugees. Many people believed it and she lost the election.”