Moldova wants to join the European Union “as soon as possible” to protect itself from the Russian threat and hopes for a decision “in the coming months” on starting talks, its president said in an interview with AFP.
“We believe that we can only save our democracy if we are part of the EU,” Maia Sandu said days before a pro-European demonstration and then an unprecedented European summit in Chisinau.
“Russia will continue to be a major source of instability for years to come and we need to protect ourselves,” added the 50-year-old Moldovan leader on the sidelines of a Council of Europe summit that ended in Iceland on Tuesday.
The former Soviet republic of 2.6 million people is organizing its first major summit on June 1st, bringing together enlarged Europe with the countries of the European Political Community (EPC) and the continent’s main heavyweights.
In February, Ms Sandu accused Russia of planning a coup to overthrow power in Chisinau.
The leader of Europe’s poorest country, in power since 2020, called a large pro-EU rally on Sunday to show Moldova’s support for membership.
“The war in Ukraine has put everything in black and white: we now see very clearly what the free world and what the authoritarian world means for all of us,” said the first woman to lead the small country, whose entire region, Transnistria is de facto under Russian control.
The invasion of Ukraine revived the previously highly unlikely hypothesis that Kiev and Chisinau would join in the medium term.
“We believe that (membership) is a realistic project and we want it to be implemented as soon as possible,” the Moldovan president told an AFP team in Reykjavik, hoping “a decision on membership will be reached in the coming months.” of negotiations”.
The EU granted Ukraine official candidate status in June 2022, but calls for further reforms, including the fight against corruption.
Although tiny Moldova, which borders Romania and is a member of the EU, would no doubt be easier to integrate given its size, there are still many obstacles to its accession to the Union, promising a process that will last at least into the 2030s would last.
In addition to its economic fragility and pressing corruption problems, Moldova must also find a solution for secessionist Transnistria, a pro-Russian region of 300,000 people in the east of the country.
“We still have work to do, but we’re working very hard and that’s our main goal now,” stressed Ms Sandu, whose country has begun withdrawing from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) led by Russia since the fall of the USSR.