“The Unionist current persists in our country even today. Undoubtedly, this debate is part of the political process. …As a Romanian citizen, I cannot vote against unification,” Popşoi said.
According to him, talking about concrete steps for unification will be possible when there is “considerable openness”.
On April 28, Moldovan President Maia Sandu allowed unification with Romania as a way to speed up the EU accession process. She also said that joining the EU was possible without taking into account the unrecognized “Transnistrian Moldovan Republic”.
Sandu reiterated her intention to prepare Moldova for EU accession by 2030.
What does Minister Popşoi mean by “significant openness”, after which it will be possible to discuss steps to unite Moldova and Romania? Is the scenario of unification of the two countries realistic as a way to accelerate Moldova’s accession to the EU? How much faster can it happen compared to the normal accession procedure?
Prominent Moldovan analysts shared their assessments on this issue with Azerbaijani publication Caliber.Az.
Difference between a person and a citizen
According to the head of the Analytical Center of Intellect Group Ian Lisnevski, first of all it is necessary to separate the personal position of a politician, the position of the state and real political processes.
“Mr. Popşoi has every right as a Romanian citizen to hold his own views on the issue of unification. However, when such statements are made not just by a politician, but by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, they are inevitably perceived as an official political signal. Especially when it comes to a scenario that touches upon issues of Moldova’s sovereignty and statehood.
As for the wording about “significant openness”, most likely, we are talking about the emergence of a stable public majority in favor of unification both in Moldova and Romania. Today, such conditions do not exist.
The latest Intellect Group poll shows that the majority of citizens would like to see a neutral and independent state in the future – 52.3%. 32.1% see the country’s future as part of the European Union. These two positions do not contradict each other, as a significant part of supporters of European integration are in favor of joining the EU as an independent state. Only 4.5% of citizens see the future of the country as part of Romania, and 4.1% – as part of the Eurasian Economic Union.
Under such conditions, it is premature to speak of a public majority in favor of unification. In addition, the experience of electoral campaigns in recent years shows that the idea of unification failed to form an independent parliamentary majority and never became a dominant public agenda.
Unionists are in the minority
This is confirmed by the election results. No openly Unionist party was able to achieve a meaningful political result on its own. Even those political forces that are associated with the Unionist segment gained support mainly due to other topics – protest voting, anti-system rhetoric, the fight against corruption or European integration,” says the analyst.
Therefore, he believes that at this stage, Mr. Popšoja’s words should be considered more as a political declaration and an attempt to normalize the very discussion on unification than as a description of a real political process that may start in the near future.
“Theoretically, the unification scenario could indeed become one of the ways of accelerated inclusion of the territory of the Republic of Moldova into the legal space of the European Union. However, in practice, its realization looks extremely unlikely.
Moreover, the presence of the unresolved Transnistrian conflict makes such an option much more complicated and risky than the process of Moldova’s European integration itself.
However, the problem is not limited only to Transnistria. Any attempts to revise borders in Eastern Europe inevitably create dangerous international precedents and raise questions in other countries of the region, where historical, territorial and ethno-political disputes also exist.
What is needed is a sane domestic policy
Unfortunately, the debate about different models of accession to the European Union increasingly forgets a key point: a successful foreign policy always starts with an effective domestic policy.
Unresolved internal problems – demography, migration, the state of the economy, the level of trust in state institutions and political polarization – remain the main obstacles to European integration today.
Therefore, the most likely scenario remains the continuation of the complex and lengthy negotiation process with the European Union. According to my assessment, the chances of Moldova’s accession to the EU before 2040 are about 35%, while the probability of maintaining the current intermediate status remains significantly higher. Scenarios of unification with Romania (both with and without Transnistria) currently look unlikely and are within a few percent.
The main question is not how to get into the European Union faster, but whether Moldova itself can become a state that will be ready to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by European integration,” says Lisniewski.
A permanent dilemma
Alexandru Tanase, ex-Minister of Justice of Moldova and former member of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, considers it important to realize that discussions about the possible reunification of Moldova and Romania have always been a natural part of the country’s political life.
“For many states, such a situation looks unusual, but in order to understand this peculiarity, it is necessary to refer to history.
Unlike most modern European states, the lands of the present-day Republic of Moldova were for centuries part of the medieval Moldovan principality. Only in 1812, after the Russian-Turkish war, Bessarabia was occupied and annexed by the Russian Empire. After the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1918, Bessarabia returned to the Romanian state. This continued until 1940, when, as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Bessarabia was re-annexed by the USSR.
In 1991, the Republic of Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union. From that moment on, a fundamental political dilemma arose in Moldovan society: whether to build an independent Moldovan state as a second Romanian state or to strive to restore unity with Romania, from which we were forcibly separated in 1940.
The situation changed in 2022
The situation changed after February 24, 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced many Eastern European countries to take a new look at their own security issues. In Moldova, the idea of unification with Romania again became the subject of active political discussion, but no longer only as a historical ideal, but as a possible project of political realism. Many citizens began to see reunification as a way to protect the country from potential Russian aggression and the prospect of losing its independence again.
We are well aware of the Kremlin’s neo-imperialist ambitions and see what is happening in the occupied territories of Ukraine,” the former minister said.
Naturally, he continued, Moldovan society does not want a repetition of its own historical tragedies of the 20th century.
“It is in this context that the messages about ‘significant openness’ should be understood. We are not talking about any secret plans or prepared scenarios, but about the formation of a sustainable public consensus. Any decision of this magnitude can be taken only democratically and only if it is supported by a majority of citizens on both sides of the Prut.
As far as European integration is concerned, theoretically, reunification with Romania would indeed mean the automatic extension of the legal space of the European Union to the territory of the Republic of Moldova. In this case, the path to the EU could be much shorter, as Moldova would not have to go through the whole lengthy process of accession and closing of negotiation chapters on its own.
At the same time, one cannot deny the obvious: both the supporters of independent statehood of the Republic of Moldova and the supporters of reunification with Romania today increasingly agree on one thing – the future of our country lies in the European space. The European Union is a natural civilizational and cultural space for the Moldovan people, as it is for Romania and other European states,” Tanase concluded.
