Moldova takes a big step towards EU membership by joining Ukraine

Tuesday, June 25, will be an important day for Moldova and Ukraine, when the EU begins years of negotiations aimed at bringing the two countries into membership.

Moldova’s President Maia Sandu is the main promoter of moving toward Europe. She has set the goal of joining the EU in 2030. However, Moldova’s road to EU membership is still long and arduous.

Chisinau has the feel of a European city. Young musicians sang Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” outside a trendy restaurant as Moldovans passed by. But the city’s architecture reminds you of its Tsarist, Romanian and Soviet past as well as its vibrant present.

Moldova’s population of 2.6 million is small by European standards, with one fifth living in the capital.

But Maia Sandu enjoys high status among EU leaders, not least because she speaks fluent English and French. She traveled economy class to the EU summit and wore jeans and sneakers.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t believe their move toward the EU is linked to the war in neighboring Ukraine.

Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe, located between Ukraine and Romania. It is plagued by corruption and survives mainly on remittances from its large diaspora across the EU.

Despite Russia’s efforts to discredit it, its ties to the rest of Europe are important.

When President Sandu signed a decree on EU accession negotiations last week, she spoke of Moldova becoming part of a “stronger, united Europe”.

But the Kremlin noted that while Moldova is a sovereign state, its “future interests” should also be linked to the Russian market and the “integration process” of the former Soviet territories.

Although Moldova’s Romanian-speaking majority is a former Soviet republic, much of its eastern edge is a pro-Moscow breakaway region called Transnistria. When Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, within days Kiev closed its 452-kilometer (280-mile) border with Transnistria.

Russian troops have not left since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the area is reminiscent of Moscow’s long arm in its former republic.

When President Sandu signed last week’s decree, she will have doubts about two major votes in October. She is aiming not only to be re-elected in the presidential election but also to hold a referendum on enshrining her country’s path to EU membership into the constitution.

Her country is divided between pro- and anti-EU camps, and its biggest obstacle is Transnistria.

Pro-government lawmaker Oazu Nantoi admitted that the problem cannot be solved overnight, but now that Ukraine’s borders are closed, he is optimistic.

“We have the ability to put pressure on this separatist regime,” he told the BBC. “

Before joining the EU, Moldova must sign up to broad democratic and judicial guarantees, which Valeriu Renita, an opposition journalist with the pro-Russian party Sansa (The Chance), says Chisinau has failed to do so at this point.

“The government has shut down 13 TV networks, 30 websites, judicial reform is going very poorly – some would say the country is a dictatorship,” he told the BBC.

His party was banned from participating in local elections last November and Mr Renita denies accusations that the Moldovan opposition is taking orders from Moscow.

The figure at the center of Russia’s alleged destabilization of Moldova is one man: fugitive business tycoon Ilan Shor, who was convicted in absentia five years ago for embezzling $1 billion from Moldovan banks.

Sauer, who now holds Russian and Israeli citizenship, currently serves as an informal coordinator in Moscow for anti-EU and pro-Russian forces in Moldova. These pro-Russian groups recently held a congress in Moscow, and when some participants returned to Chisinau, authorities confiscated more than 1 million euros in cash.

Moldova timetable

1812 The eastern part of the Principality of Moldova was annexed by Tsarist Russia and renamed Bessarabia

1918 With the collapse of Tsarist Russia, Bessarabia became part of the Kingdom of Romania

1940 After Stalin issued an ultimatum, Romania ceded Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. Then merged with Transnistria to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic

1991-92 Moldavia declared independence from the Soviet Union. After a brief civil war, Transnistria separatists backed by Soviet troops stationed themselves on the east bank of the Dniestr River

Language is the main dividing line here.

Romanian/Moldovan speakers make up about 80% of Moldova’s 2.6 million inhabitants (excluding Transnistria), and they strongly support EU integration.

Major Russian-speaking minorities, including Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians and Gagauzians, opposed it.

The Moldovan government says many of them have been severely affected by Russia’s “information warfare”.

The Gagauzians are a Turkic Christian ethnic group in the autonomous region of southern Moldova, led by the pro-Kremlin governor Yevgenia Gutur.

She is a well-known supporter of Ilan Shore, and earlier this year Moldovan EU ambassador Janis Mazekes complained that it was impossible to talk to her.

Domestically, polls show support for the EU in the October 20 referendum at 55-65%. But given the hundreds of thousands of Moldovans living and working in the EU, a yes vote seems assured, at least for now.

With their votes, Maya Sandu might even win outright in the first round of the presidential election.

But Russian influence has always been there, whether in the war in neighboring Ukraine or in fake news appearing on TikTok or Telegram.

So much so that the Chisinau government fears Moscow could incite violence in the run-up to the October referendum.

President Sandu has been the target of a deepfake video, while another fake video features Moldovan children in a military camp.

Galina Vasilieva, editor of the Romanian and Russian-language news site NewsMaker, said the content was seen by Moldovans who were most susceptible to propaganda.

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