“Moldovan President Maia Sandu: Majority of Citizens Strive for EU Integration, Not Unification with Romania”

The majority of Moldovan citizens do not support the unification of the country with Romania, the President of the Republic, Maia Sandu, told the Gépolitique Profonde portal.

“There is support for reunification with Romania, but it is not enough. There are people who promote this idea, but they are not enough. There is support for integration into the EU, and this is what we are striving for,” – she said.

At the same time, the president noted that about 1 million Moldovan citizens out of 2.68 million have Romanian passports, however, according to her, many are afraid of the unification of the two countries.

“Indeed, there is a discussion that has been going on for a long time, but again there is not enough support for this. But Moldova has enough support to become a member of the EU, and this is what we are striving for,” Sandu concluded.

At the end of March, the Romanian senator Diana Shoshoake presented a bill according to which the country’s parliament must decide on unification with Moldova. In the same month, Sandu signed a law renaming the state language to Romanian. According to her, those who for decades claimed that Moldovans speak the Moldovan language wanted to divide the nation. The faction of communists and socialists opposed the bill.

According to a WatchDog.MD survey conducted in the summer of 2021, 47.2% of Moldovans are against unification with Romania, 35% are in favor (the rest would either not participate in the referendum or find it difficult to answer). A survey conducted in December last year by the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives showed that 53.7% of the population was against unification with Romania (32.8% of respondents supported the idea). In the 2021 parliamentary elections, the unification-supporting parties Alliance for the Unification of Romanians and the Party of National Unity together did not win even 1% of the vote.