First article in the series:
Moldova Is Looking for a Shared Vision of the Future
This new article continues this conversation and moves it to one of the most sensitive areas of Moldova’s transition: language, memory, different information environments, and society’s ability to talk about the future as a shared space.
Moldova is moving toward the European Union. But the European path does not pass through an empty space. It passes through existing gaps—linguistic, regional, historical, media, and territorial.
Through Europe Day and Victory Day, through the memory of war and repression, through debates about unification with Romania, through the Russian-speaking community, and especially through Transnistria.
The article’s central question is: can Moldova’s European future be the future of the entire country if different groups in society hear it in different languages, through different fears, and from different sources?
This isn’t a text about language in the narrow sense. Nor is it a debate about what language politics should speak.
This is a discussion about who first explains to people their place in the country’s future—the state, public leaders, and trusted agents of change, or those who transform fears into mobilization.
Moldova’s Future Needs a Shared Language
For Moldova, the EU is not only a direction of travel. It is also a way to learn how to speak about the future of the whole country.
In Moldova, there is a date that always tests the country’s ability to hold a shared conversation.
Europe Day can sound like a conversation about the future: security, freedom of movement, the country’s development, and opportunities for children. But next to it stands another date and another memory. Victory Day has now been compromised by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and by the language used to justify that aggression. This does not erase people’s memory, but it places it in a painful position: in order not to be associated with today’s war, they are almost expected to give up part of their own past.
This is precisely where it becomes important to separate memory from propaganda, respect for the past from the justification of aggression, and a conversation about the future from the demand to choose the only “correct” side of one’s own biography.
There is another sensitive subject as well: discussions about unification with Romania. In Moldovan politics, this topic returns again and again — as a historical argument, as an emotional marker of the European choice, or as a way to mobilize one’s own audience, either for or against it. But in a conversation about a shared future, this issue is almost always destructive. It immediately raises the question: is Moldova moving toward the European Union as an independent state, or is the European path becoming a road toward a different scenario?
For a country with an unresolved territorial issue, regional divides, and different historical memories, this is not a secondary detail. It is one of the main sources of mistrust.
At first glance, all these subjects seem different. But in public perception, they converge around one question: what will Moldova look like tomorrow, and will there be room in that future Moldova for my language, my region, my family, and my past?
Moldova is moving toward the European Union. This course already gives the country a direction. But direction alone does not yet create a shared conversation about the future. It passes through existing divides – linguistic, historical, media-related, and territorial.
Something else must also be acknowledged. The pressure of pro-Russian messages, external influence, and street mobilization is real. That is why the authorities’ desire to occupy symbolic space, speak more firmly, and demonstrate the strength of the European choice can be understood.
But this logic has its limits. If the European path is explained only as a response to a threat, it quickly becomes part of mobilization itself. For those who are already convinced, this looks like firmness. For those who hesitate, are tired, or live in a different information environment, the same signal may sound different: we are not being invited to understand the future; we are being asked to choose a side.
That is why the country needs more than a set of messages about the European path. It needs a new format for a shared conversation – one that can respond to threats without turning Moldova’s future into a mirror struggle over symbols.
It Is Not Only About Language
The discussion about Moldova’s different communication environments is often reduced to the language issue. The picture seems simple: Romanian is the language of the state and its institutions; Russian is the second language for news, communication, and services.
But reality is more complex.
Political views do not always coincide with language. An anti-Western position can be expressed in Romanian. Russian can be used by people with very different views – neutral, anti-war, or pro-European.
That is why the key question is not what language a person speaks. What matters more is who explains events to that person, and through what picture of the world they come to see the country’s future.
In Moldova, Russian still cannot be described only through ethnicity. It is present in everyday life, services, business, family communication, social media, and in many regions it remains a familiar language for accessing news.
A person may speak Romanian at home, work in a bilingual environment, and watch political interviews in Russian. They may not consider themselves part of a Russian-speaking minority, yet it is through that environment that they form their attitude toward what is happening in the country.
The census shows the language of self-identification and the language usually used. But it does not show the language of trust: the language in which a person worries, reads comments, receives links from relatives, or listens to people they have trusted for a long time.
For Moldova’s transition toward Europe, this matters. People do not perceive the country’s future only through official statements. They hear and see it through the environment they consider their own. If there is no clear conversation about the future in that environment, the space does not remain empty. It is actively occupied by other explanations.
When Explanation Comes Late
Sometimes it seems that if public institutions speak more cautiously to an audience they consider difficult or risky, they reduce the space for manipulation. In conditions of a nearby war and external pressure, such caution is understandable.
But people do not stop asking questions simply because they are spoken to less often.
This is clearly visible in the case of the Russian language. In public communication, it often ends up in second place: some institutions have no Russian version of their website; in others it appears later, formally and incompletely. For a person, this is not just a technical issue. It is a signal: they are being addressed worse, or not directly.
People may not turn this into a political conclusion. They simply see that the information they need is harder to find and sounds less clear. Then the conversation about the country’s future is no longer perceived as an invitation, but as a message meant for someone else.
The questions, however, remain. If a clear answer does not arrive in time, it is provided by other politicians, social media, or relatives who send a link with the words: “look what is happening.” In this way, fear receives an explanation before the official position has time to become understandable.
In a country that lives almost in a continuous election campaign, this is especially dangerous. Even a legitimate subject can sound like a signal of division: a commemorative date as a test of loyalty, Europe as a marker of a political camp, security as fear of being drawn into war.
This is where the European framework becomes important. Not only as a direction of foreign policy, but also as a way of speaking about difficult issues without putting pressure on personal space and without turning the future into a party marker.
The memory of deportations, repression, and the Holocaust must be preserved through archives, schools, museums, and human testimonies. In this way, a difficult past remains in public consciousness, but does not become a weapon against other citizens.
The same approach is needed in the conversation about Europe. Europe Day in Chișinău is not only an official event. It includes European projects, cultural and educational activities, and the opportunity to see EU countries not as abstract geopolitics, but as the living experience of different societies.
But date and place still matter. In Moldova, May 9 remains a day of strong memory and intense political competition. People go to the memorial, the authorities pay tribute, and some parties hold marches. This year, massive car rallies with red flags were added to that picture, occupying the city’s streets for several hours. Against this background, Europe Day in the central square inevitably becomes not only a celebration of the future, but also a response to the pressure of pro-Russian messages and street mobilization.
This response is understandable. If pro-Russian forces try to occupy the date, the streets, and the symbols, the authorities want to show that the European choice is also visible, numerous, and present on the main stage. But this is exactly where the communication risk appears: by responding to one form of mobilization with another, a European celebration may begin to be read as a counter-flag rather than an invitation to the future.
It is important that this symbolic gesture be followed by meaningful communication with people. Then Europe will be perceived not as yet another political camp, but as a space of opportunity — through education, culture, open institutions, and programs for business and young people.
The same applies to security, which needs to be explained through the protection of people in a country next to which a war is taking place. If this conversation comes late or sounds in an unfamiliar language, its place is quickly taken by the fear of being drawn into conflict and losing neutrality.
Social media algorithms accelerate this reaction even further. An alarming post, a short video, or a repost from a friend can give a person a ready-made explanation before public institutions have time to respond calmly and carefully.
That is why the question is no longer how to speak more often about the European path, but who is the first to explain to a person their place in that future.
Transnistria as a Critical Test
In the logic of transition communication, Transnistria cannot be left as a separate issue “for later.” It is the hardest test of Moldova’s ability to speak about the future as a shared country.
Moldova cannot build a European future as a project only for the right bank of the Dniester. The Republic of Moldova – the whole country – will join the EU. The legal, political, and practical details remain complicated. But from a communication perspective, the left bank cannot simply be left outside the conversation.
The problem is that Transnistria lives not only in a different political reality, but also in a different information environment. Russian television channels, online media and Telegram channels, as well as the familiar communication circle, have long shaped a stable picture of the world there. In that picture, Chișinău appears as a source of pressure, Romania as a threat, Europe as a risk, and familiar life as something that needs to be protected.
Such an environment cannot be changed by one channel or one campaign. The idea of a Russian-language public television channel with terrestrial broadcasting toward the left bank could be an important signal: Moldova understands that it needs to speak to people there as well. But in itself, this is not a solution. People rarely change their familiar picture of the world simply because a new source of information has appeared. They remain in an environment that feels clear and trustworthy to them.
That is why the conversation with Transnistria does not begin by directly “breaking through” to the left bank, but by improving the quality of Russian-language communication on the right bank.
If there is too little substantive and convincing conversation in Russian about the country’s future, the left bank has almost nothing to see beyond its familiar representations. But if a strong Russian-language environment emerges – one that regularly and clearly explains how Moldova is developing – its influence gradually begins to extend beyond its original audience.
There is interest in what is happening on the right bank in Transnistria as well. People follow what affects their everyday life, maintain ties with relatives and acquaintances, and use shared opportunities, including for travel to the EU. Social networks can amplify this interest, but only when there is quality content that people actually want to read, watch, and discuss.
This is precisely where the discussion about unification with Romania becomes especially destructive. For a conversation about a shared future, such a framework is unacceptable. It does not have majority support in society and immediately activates the central fear: that the European path does not lead to a shared Moldova, but to the disappearance of the familiar country. In the Transnistrian information environment, this fear is read even more strongly because it falls onto an already prepared picture of threats.
If European integration is to become a shared course, it cannot be explained in a language that excludes part of society from the outset. The left bank will not begin to listen to Chișinău simply because Chișinău speaks louder. But it may begin to notice Moldova if a strong, clear, and living Russian-language environment appears on the right bank, where the European path is explained not as a political order, but as the organization of normal life.
In this logic, Transnistria is not only a settlement issue. It is a test of whether Moldova can create a shared language of the future before final political solutions appear.
A Shared Conversation Must Be Created in Advance
Today, Moldova has an exceptional opportunity. The European path is defined, external support is expanding, and institutional changes continue. But the country lives next to a war, in a state of fatigue, mistrust, and constant political mobilization.
In such a situation, it is not enough to speak more often about the European path or to translate prepared messages into another language. Moldova needs a new space for shared conversation — one in which people with different pictures of the world can see themselves in the same future country.
This space does not emerge on its own from the European course. It must be created in advance: through the way the state explains decisions, how it speaks about reforms, and how political parties address people – especially those that carry the responsibility of governing and set the tone of the transition.
This is not about propaganda, nor about trying to please everyone at the same time. A shared conversation begins where fears are not mocked or used for mobilization, but discussed calmly and substantively. Will statehood disappear? Will reform become pressure on my business? Will my language be left outside the conversation?
Answers to such questions cannot be provided by one campaign. This requires constant presence in different environments, a normal language of explanation, respect for difficult memory, and work through people who are trusted.
It is not enough for Moldova to move toward the European Union only at the level of institutions. This road must also be traveled as a society. In the European model, rules and procedures matter, but so does the ability to discuss the future publicly, recognize different experiences, explain decisions, and search for solutions for a country in which people can live together without becoming identical.
For Moldova, this is not a beautiful European formula, but part of the transition itself. If the country is moving toward the EU, it needs not only a European path, but also a European way of talking about itself and its future: without mobilizing one part of society against another and without excluding language or the left bank from the conversation about the future.
Precisely because the pressure is real, Moldova needs not a weaker but a more mature language of the European choice. It must protect the country from external manipulation without reducing the future to a permanent struggle for symbolic space.
Moldova’s European path sets the direction. But only a shared conversation can turn that direction into a future for the whole country.
Alexandr Bejenari
Founder of PARC Communications, Strategic Communications Expert
