Romania plays an absolutely positive role in the European path of the Republic of Moldova and Romania is even obliged to make every effort for Moldova to manage to integrate into the EU given that the European integration is the only subject that has been a consensual one during the 32 years of independence, the permanent expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan stated in a public debate titled entitled “European genealogy tree of Moldova”.

According to the expert, Romania, as a member state of the EU and NATO, besides the dimension concerning linguistic, ethnic unity, has the obligation that derives from its status of EU and NATO member. The responsibility related to security is the greatest one. Besides, Romania is fully involved in other areas and this influences Moldova a lot.

In the same connection, the expert noted that the first legislative body of Moldova, which adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty and Independence, is the one that laid the basis of European integration and the Constitutional Court confirmed this in 2014. Surprisingly, the only foreign policy strategy adopted by the agrarians stipulated the European integration desideratum. Exactly in that period, ex-President Petru Lucinschi sent two letters, in 2007 and in 2008, to the President of the European Commission, asking that the Republic of Moldova should be accepted as an EU candidate state.

According to Igor Boțan, the citizens’ support for the EU grew together with the respective messages that came from the political class. The support declined suddenly after the bank fraud and during a year voters’ preferences for the Eurasian integration were greater than those for the European integration.

“Together with the protests launched in 2016, things started to return to normality and polls now show that 60% of those who are in the country are for European integration. Given that one third of the citizens eligible to vote are in the diaspora and the last elections showed that the diaspora is 95% for the European integration, we can say that three fourths of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova with the right to vote are fully for the European integration, which is extraordinary support, and the goal of the political class is to turn this citizens’ support into reality”.

The expert noted that the EU ultimately realized that leaving Moldova and Ukraine, the countries that detached themselves from the Soviet empire in the grey zone is a big mistake as Russia, with its pretentions of breathing empire that contracts and then expands accumulates forces for re-extension. “The abandonment in the grey zone will not bring peace in Europe. Attempts will be made to re-conquer these states. The only solution is for these states to be accepted into the European Union and this thing started, including also due to the aggression against Ukraine,” stated Igor Boțan.

He said that Romania is ready to help Moldova make progress in the 33 chapters included in the EU’s conditions if the accession negations are opened, besides the millions of euros in EU support that will come for projects that will be implemented in Moldova.

The public debate entitled “European genealogy tree of Moldova” was the 22nd installment of IPN’s project “Impact of the Past on Confidence and Peace Building Processes” which is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.