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| Anatol Țăranu | |
The process of establishing a pro-Romanian political pole on the Moldovan political arena has a controversial history. It all started in 2017 with the founding of the European Civic Movement, created by 77 personalities, including former MPs, voters of the Declaration of Independence and leading figures of the National Renaissance Movement. The movement aimed to unify the efforts of European forces, as the presidential election in 2016 was won by a pro-Moscow politician, and to ensure the pro-EU option won the 2019 parliamentary elections.
A missed first chance
But a broad coalition on the pro-European segment couldn’t be formed then and the effort was limited to creating an electoral bloc called ACUM, which consisted only of two center-right parties - the Dignity and Truth Platform and the Action and Solidarity Party. No political forces with a definite unionist message entered this bloc and this dramatically decreased the final electoral result of the Europeanist party. In the parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019, the electoral bloc ACUM gained only 26 seats of MP out of 101, one of the worst results of the reformist and European forces in the entire political history of the Republic of Moldova.
Not being attracted to the ACUM bloc, the political forces from the unionist segment tried in November 2018, at the initiative of the European Civic Movement, to form a special electoral entity – the Euro-Unionist Convention (EUC) – that consisted of two political parties and 15 civic entities. That entity was open to other civic and political entities. The purpose of the Convention was to mobilize the pro-Romanian electoral segment by bringing together the unionist political forces concentrated on a single list in the February 2019 parliamentary elections.
Another chance destroyed from within
But shortly after the promising launch of EUC, the then leadership of the National Liberal Party (PNL Moldova) decided to leave the Euro-Unionist Convention, the party announcing its participation as a separate unionist entity in the parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019. As a result, PNL accumulated a shamefully low score of 3430 votes, or 0.24% of the ballot. And the Euro-Unionist Convention, affected by the split inside it, gave up participating in the elections in order not to compromise the pro-Romanian cause in the Republic of Moldova as a result of a supposedly poor result in elections due to the fragmentation of the unionist vote.
On July 11, 2021, snap parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of Moldova, in which the unionists participated scattered and, as a result, the parties with a unionist message were not able each to garner more than 0.5% of the vote. The unionist electors preferred to vote massively for the Europeanist party PAS, harshly penalizing the lack of cohesion and unity on the unionist segment, rightly concluding that those politicians who are unable to unite internally cannot make the long-awaited Great Romanian Union.
Lack of identity policies
Moldovan society has by now lived under the almost four year-rule of President Maia Sandu and the slightly shorter period of government of the pro-presidential PAS party. During these years, the Europeanist government in Chisinau has achieved notable successes in certain areas, propelling the Republic of Moldova on the path of European integration. But these successes have accumulated mainly at foreign policy level, in relation to the Western development partners. Whereas in terms of internal reforms, the real situation is quite different. The economy has been stagnant, the standard of living of the population has fallen, the demographic situation has worsened alarmingly. During these years, the attractiveness of the European idea in Moldovan society has not increased and sociological surveys point to a modest rise in the number of supporters of the European integration over the index of 50%.
Even if in Moldovan society the political option regarding the Republic of Moldova’s accession to the EU is slightly in the majority, however, among Moldovan citizens there are many supporters of the anti-European option, being animated and massively supported by Moscow. At the same time, the most convinced Europeanists in Moldovan society are the Moldovan citizens with assumed Romanian national consciousness. And this means that the European option in the Republic of Moldova will categorically gain ground only if the Romanian identity of the majority population is affirmed and strengthened. But it is precisely in terms of Romanian identity policies that the current government sees great shortcomings, being of Euro-sovereigntist orientation as it chose the EU accession path of the Republic of Moldova as a sovereign state.
Fragmentation of Euro-Unionist segment
Another political inconvenience of the current PAS government is witnessed in the area of staff policy shortage, given that the ruling party ignored the potential of other political forces of European orientation, missing the chance to create a broad common front of the European forces. As a result, PAS saw the emergence on the Euro-sovereigntist segment of an alliance of Europeanist-oriented parties in militant opposition to the current European government. The newly created quadripartite alliance of Euro-sovereigntist orientation, similar to PAS, relentlessly criticizes the government, promising to lead the Moldovan sovereign state on the path to the EU with more professionalism and efficiency.
At the same time, on the Moldovan political arena, in opposition to the Euro-sovereigntist European integration option, there is the Euro-unionist option, which advocates the Republic of Moldova’s accession to the EU by restoring Romanian national unity by reintegrating Moldova eastward the Prut River into Romania. Euro-unionists say that the political project of the Union of the two Romanian states can be the shortest and safest way of European integration of the Republic of Moldova. However, the implementation of this project depends on the affirmation and strengthening of the Romanian identity character of the Republic of Moldova. But national identity is most easily built and strengthened through state policies. Therefore, the objective of the emergence on the Moldovan political arena of a united Romanian political pole capable of propelling to the decision-making level of the state a Euro-unionist political team able to pursue state policies with the objective of restoring Romanian national unity as a guarantee of secure accession of the Romanian space eastward the Prut River to the EU, becomes more and more topical.
Only a Convention of Euro-Unionist forces...
Sociological surveys have long set the number of adherents to the Euro-unionist idea at around 40% among the Moldovan citizens. However, at the state decision-making level, this civilization option is not directly represented politically, which impermissibly distorts the democratic representation in the Moldovan political system. The perpetuation of this state of affairs is already becoming anachronistic, a fact acknowledged by unionist political leaders. In this political context, on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania, a festive gathering was held in Chisinau, organized by the National Reunification Party ACASA together with the Liberal Party, with the participation of a large number of civil society organizations. This ended with the adoption of a Declaration calling for the formation and strengthening on the Moldovan political arena of a Euro-unionist political pole for the Euro-unionists to compete in future elections on a single National List formed and approved at a representative congress of the Euro-Unionist parties united at national level.
Appealing to the political and civic maturity of the Euro-Unionists, the Declaration also contains the condemnation of any manifestations of political egoism and profiteering interests of those political characters and groups that will try to torpedo the effort to unite the Euro-Unionist parties. Only a Convention of Euro-Unionist Forces is able to launch a National Electoral List in the upcoming elections, thus contributing to the massive mobilization of the unionist electorate that is now disappointed by the lack of performance of the current government’s policies, and to guarantee through its exemplary mobilization the majority vote in favor of the European course of the Republic of Moldova. Only in this way the Romanian cause of the Republic of Moldova will triumph politically and will lead to the successful achievement of the ideal of national reunification, thus guaranteeing the Republic of Moldova’s integration into NATO and the EU.
IPN publishes in the Op-Ed rubric opinion pieces submitted by authors not affiliated with our editorial board. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily coincide with the opinions of our editorial board.