About 9,000 signatures collected in support of Moldova’s union with Romania and meetings with people in about 600 villages. These are only some of the results achieved within the information campaign centering on the unionist referendum of 2018, conducted by the Civic Movement “Moldova’s Youth” in summer. As a result of the campaign, unionist cells were set up in 270 villages to disseminate the unionist message among the population.
The Movement’s member Artemis Balan, in a news conference at IPN, said the volunteers discussed with local authorities and opinion leaders in villages and urged them to pass on the information about the steps and projects that will be implemented during the next two years. The message with which the volunteers came before the people was that the union with Romania will take place in 2018 and the people should be ready for the then referendum. In parallel with this campaign, there were also implemented such projects as “Visit your country”, within which about 29,000 Moldovans were able to visit free Romania. The project will be continued in 2017. The goal is for the people to visit the nice places in Romania and see the realities there, changing thus their opinion about what Romania means and is.
The parliamentary elections in Romania, in particular the amendments made to the Romanian legislation that enable to establish polling places in communities with over 100 Romanian citizens, was another subject raised in the information campaign. The local authorities were asked to mobilize the people to the elections. “Let’s show to the Romanian authorities that we obtained the nationality not only with the aim of working. We also become involved in the social and political life of Romania,” stated Artemis Balan.
The representatives of the local authorities were also informed about the possibility of twinning with the mayor’s offices of Romania and about the financing that they can obtain within common project following the amendment of the Romanian legislation in the field. Another objective of the information campaign was to inform the people about the planned launch of the channel Unirea TV, which is 100% Romanian and is not controlled politically and which will promote the idea of the Union.
The head of the Civic Movement “Moldova’s Youth” Anatol Ursu said the intention is to persuade as many people as possible that the Union is the only solution for the Republic of Moldova. “In 2016-2017, we plan to increase the number of unionists in the Republic of Moldova and of unionist branches so that they become cells for implementing bilateral projects all over the country. The goal is to disseminate as much information as possible and this will be achieved when the people vote for the Union with Romania in the referendum of 2018. It is a hard and assiduous battle, but we are ready to fight it till the end,” he stated.
During the information campaign, the Movement’s volunteers rode by bike about 3,000 km and shared 160,000 newspapers with the aim of informing the people.
