Amid the war, when the relations are established under the influence of the war logic, military accomplishments or defeats, the political statements or their absence cannot change something, director of the Association “Initiative for Peace” Alexandru Flenchea, ex-Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration, said in a public debate hosted by IPN.
The expert referred to the recent PACE resolution by which the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova is recognized as “a zone of Russian occupation”. He said this cannot be considered a rescuing factor against the eventual extension of the occupation if Ukraine is defeated.
The former Deputy Premiers considers the Russia-Ukraine war destroyed the existing architecture of the efforts to reunify the country. “I return to the idea that what had been done during 30 years hasn’t worked during the past three weeks. The Republic of Moldova should rethink the paradigm of security and survival as a state and a nation…”.
The expert said that even if the politicians and society since 2005 have been in favor of the European integration, a dialogue should be initiated to agree how we can survive this war and, what is more important, how we can integrate into the world after the war. In this eventual preoccupation, the political leaders play a major role for the simple reason that they have the necessary instruments and influence. “It may sound banal, but this should be a wide dialogue involving civil society, regional interest groups”.
Alexandru Flenchea said a process of remodeling the world is now taking pace and the scenario of an “iron curtain” on the European continent is a realistic one. “I’m terrified at such a perspective. Either they shoot eastwards the Republic of Moldova, on the Nistru or on the Prut, all the scenarios are very bad, I think. Regardless of the scenario, we should be ready to integrate into the postwar arrangement. If we do not anticipate the events and do not present our view on things to the big players… It is the case to do this now that we are in the focus of the world leaders that listen to us and will understand what the Republic of Moldova wants. We should not wait for the world to be re-divided. We must know what we want and should not guess on what part of the wall fate will throw us. This would be fully mistaken”.
The public debate titled “PACE recognized Transnistria as “zone of Russian occupation”. What new opportunities or risks can this generate for the reintegration of the Republic of Moldova?” was the 230th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
