The decrease in the number of Moldovans who would vote for entry into the EU in an eventual referendum is due to the difficult socioeconomic situation, experts Vlad Kulminski and Alexandru Flenchea said after the Public Opinion Barometer (BOP) showed that the number of those who want Moldova to join the EU declined to 47%. According to the former Deputy Prime Ministers for Reintegration, to prevent Euroskepticism from embracing a large part of society, the authorities should aim their efforts at raising the living standards of the citizens, IPN reports.
According to the survey, in an eventual referendum to choose between Moldova’s accession to the European Union and entry into the Eurasian Economic Union, 47% would choose the first option, while 32.5% – the second option. The number of Euroskeptics is much higher than in 2021, when 56% of those polled said that they were for the country’s entry into the EU.
“This is due to the rather difficult socioeconomic situation. Maximum attention should be devoted to the economic situation. This should be the stake of all the efforts. I don’t have any doubts about the presidential election. I think that it is practically impossible to grow another leader, a real rival to Maia Sandu during such a short period of time. But the situation in the case of the parliamentary elections is maximally uncertain. If the socioeconomic situation does not improve until the parliamentary elections, it is hard to anticipate what will happen. Let’s imagine that an alliance comes to power and this poses a direct and real danger to Ukraine, Romania, the European Union. There will be chaos. The Republic of Moldova could enter the warzone and experience maximum uncertainty. That’s why it is important to see the real needs of the people and these needs do not refer to justice,” ex-Deputy Premier for Reintegration Vlad Kulminski stated in the program “In Depth” on ProTV Chisinau channel.
For his part, ex-Deputy Premier for Reintegration Alexandru Flenchea said the precarious socioeconomic situation makes the citizens lose confidence in the pro-European rhetoric. The people live worse now than in 2021.
“Even now we have an inflation rate of 10% and this is anyway a lot and this inflation rate of 10% comes over the inflation rate of 34% recorded a year ago. This means that the Moldovans during two years got almost twice poorer. The offered assistance enabled to secure energy resources and the people didn’t get frozen, but the living conditions of the people worsened,” stated Alexandru Flenchea.
The Public Opinion Barometer was carried out during August 9-23 and covered a representative sample of 1,215 persons aged 18 and over from the Republic of Moldova. The margin of sampling error is at most +3%.
