Every day, the Moldovan citizens are bombarded with all kinds of scares, lies and exaggerations related to the European integration of the Republic of Moldova and the referendum of October 20, and many people believe in these falsehoods. One of the untruths is that, by becoming a member of the EU, Moldova would lose its sovereignty and would be ruled by foreigners. Another scare is that this referendum and EU membership would have something to do with militarization and the loss of the country’s neutrality, said representatives of the civic initiative “Citizens for Europe”, which was founded by personalities from various fields to carry out information activities throughout the country, IPN reports.

One of the founders of the initiative, Valeriu Pașa, head of WatchDog community, said that another widespread falsehood is that joining the European Union would harm the rights of ethnic minorities or that the entire process would be directed against the Russian Federation. “The people are bombarded daily with falsehoods, lies and exaggerations. This is not accidental, but it is a well-directed campaign that is heavily financed with dirty money coming from abroad,” stated Valeriu Pașa.

He also referred to the scare about Moldova’s neutrality, namely that if the country enters the EU, it means that it automatically enters NATO as well. “The politicians who say this absolutely do not respect their audience. Anyone can browse the internet and see what NATO means and what the EU means. They are two absolutely distinct, separate organizations. Yes, they have many member countries in common, but NATO is a military defensive alliance, and the European Union is a construction, a coalition of economic and political countries. The EU does not even have its own army. The EU, in its accession criteria, does not stipulate the obligation for the acceding countries to enter one military alliance or another. Moreover, within the EU there are states that are not members of NATO. They have the status of neutrality, which is stipulated in their Constitution, as it is in the case of the Republic of Moldova. We are talking about Austria, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland,” said Valeriu Pașa.

Andrei Curăraru, an expert in public policies and security, referred to sovereignty. According to him, the simplest definition says that sovereignty is the supreme power over a territory and a people. “It is very harsh to say, but what kind of sovereignty do we lose if 12% of the territory of the Republic of Moldova is occupied by the Russian Federation. And when we talk about European integration, we have to adopt about 4,000 laws in the context of European integration. We started this process in 2014 and no citizen felt that fewer decisions were taken in their favor or that these decisions were somehow against the national interest,” explains Andrei Curăraru.

Vida Nedova, a media expert, noted that another widespread narrative is that joining the EU would lead to discrimination against Russian-speakers or other ethnic minorities. “I’m a Russian-speaking citizen of the Republic of Moldova and I’m of Bulgarian nationality. I would like to tell you that joining the European Union will not lead to discrimination, including against citizens like me. Let’s start with the fact that the founding of state institutions to deal with the protection of the rights of ethnic or linguistic minorities is a general EU membership criterion for any candidate state,” said the expert.