European integration is a great chance for Moldova, Nicolae Timofti

European integration is a great chance for Moldova of proving itself as a state and as society, and this process is irreversible, stated Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti in an interview with Info-Prim Neo published on 8 August 2012. “It is a great chance. It would be much more difficult for us to manage on our own. (...) Everything on earth happens in accordance to some objective rules of time. Currently, for Moldova – a country with clear European tendencies – there can be no other alternative. If we stray from this path, we will end up alone again. It is not me who claims it, but the hundreds of thousands of Moldovan citizens who have traveled to the EU or currently work there, and have gotten to see the benefits of societies that were not built on empty dreams, propaganda and disdain for the people, but on values and respect towards rights. Hence, I am completely confident that our citizens, including the State servicemen on whom the reforms mostly lay upon, will be wise enough not to abandon an idea midway. I repeat: we halted, because we were unsure that the path had taken was correct. But we cannot return to our first bump”, said the President. He expressed his conviction that the current Moldovan government is able to prevent a departure from the European integration course. “I am convinced that they are capable. If I wouldn’t have been convinced, I wouldn’t have accepted this position. I came so that we can accomplish this European integration program together”, stated Nicolae Timofti. He thinks that the results of the opinion polls showing a decline in the population's interest in Moldova's European orientation against an increase in the popularity of an Eurasian project are less relevant than the political option expressed by the people in the last two parliamentary elections, which demonstrated the commitment of the majority to European integration. At the same time, the President says that the Communist Party pursues narrow interests when promoting the Eurasian project. “It is too much to discuss another option besides the European one. To me, the votes given by the citizens twice: on July 29, 2009 and on November 28, 2010, in favor of the European integration idea, bear a greater weight than the poll results. The current government has a firm mandate, granted by the citizens, to develop the country according to European principles. The Eurasian option is gaining momentum (without having any empirical proof of citizens’ adherence to this option), in my opinion, for two reasons: firstly, because of the tardiness with which some institutions reform themselves, which should not steal from the European integration ideal; and, secondly, due to the activism of a party, and its satellites, which speculates on people’s nostalgia. It is the party that, albeit promoting the idea of European integration for a while, ended up stowing us away from Europe and set us on bad terms with our neighbors. It even drew us farther from the Russian Federation, through unwise politics. This party wants to regain the governing power at any cost, and thus is currently muddying the waters”, stated President Nicolae Timofti in an interview with Info-Prim Neo.