A joke on the issue: A poor man had an idea of how he could get rid of poverty and always prayed to God: “God, help me win in the lottery; God, help me win in the lottery”. He prayed so for several years in a row. One day, A Voice told him from above: “You, man, go and buy a ticket first”. Maybe some of our politicians should also be told: “You, man, do something to justify your pretensions. For example, win the elections so that you could speak in the name of the people, especially about national problems…”
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Everyone knows that the Association Agreement between Moldova and the European Union will be signed in five days. In fact, this thing was clear a month ago as well. In any case, it was clearer than ever. At the same time, the apogee of the practical and local, ‘scientific-practical’ and ‘international’ protests against the accord, staged by particular political forces in Moldova, coincided with this period of maximum clarity in this issue. It is a situation when we should ask ourselves if this unusual behavior is simply inappropriate or, on the contrary, is very calculated. If it is calculated, where do the given calculations go?

A part of the ordinary participants in the protests may sincerely think that at this stage something can be still changed and that the imperative demands can be fulfilled by chanting persistently “Stop the signing of the Agreement!”, ”We want in the Customs Union!”, “Re-fe ren-dum!”. But the organizers of these events do not have motives to believe that until June 27 and in the near future, the given slogans can be put into practice. Otherwise, they would give us serious reasons to believe that they don’t know on what planet they live. I say this for a number of reasons:

1. The initiators of the anti-accord protests are aware that the Association Agreement cannot be rejected in several days, without the risk of Moldova witnessing “the Kiev maidan”, with its continuation in the form of a war like in some of the regions of Ukraine. Also, unlike the ‘pre-maidan’ situation in Ukraine, in Moldova there are no political forces on which the signing of the accord depends and which would be ready to drop out.

2. The given organizers know that the founders of the recent Eurasian Customs Union (ECU) - Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus – held no referendum when they created this regional organization with the evident goal of providing an alternative to the European Union. And these countries didn’t associate themselves with a certain organization, but founded one only or became members. Do the given Moldovan politicians suggest that the regimes ruling in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are non-democratic and thus didn’t apply the referendum, which is a mandatory instrument for democracy? Or maybe the governments of these countries obtained the right to decide the foreign development course as a result of democratic, free and fair elections? If these governments have this right, in the case of an upper accession degree, why should they refuse the Moldovan government this right in a case that is much simpler?

3. At least for themselves, the initiators of the anti-European events must admit that the government coalition of Moldova has the right to sign this accord, of association only, because it won the parliamentary elections with a pro-European program not once, but twice. On November 3, 2013, it brought together over 100,000 supporters of the European course in the Great National Assembly Square. At the same time, the 10,000-15,000 people who, as the organizers say, want the signing of the agreement to be stopped, provide no legitimacy when it is about national problems. Somebody may challenge the figure of over 100,000 people who gathered in the Great National Assembly Square, for different reasons, but, for the same reasons, one can suspect that the figure of 10,000 – 15,000 is also much lower so that it is anyway to the detriment of the legitimacy of the anti-European protests mounted lately. In this case, it is rather relevant a funny, but very sad short film spread through social networking sites, entitled “Ionel Istrati, the secret weapon of …” 

4. Also, the organizers of the anti-European protests know that real democracy ensured the holding of referendums in absolutely all the countries that joined the EU, but no plebiscites were held in the pre-accession period. This fact points to something. At the same time, there wasn’t and will probably not be a referendum in the case of the creation of the CIS, ECU and other forms of state association in the Eastern area. Then, how is it better - in the West with referendum or in the East without referendum? Another relevant joke for the anti-European Moldovans: “You should better make up your mind, mister. It’s already the third stop we are passing…”. Maybe you tell us what the Moldovans should look for in an area where the referendums are excluded or are held only in the presence of Kalashnikov guns, as in Crimea and Donbas?

5. The leaders of the pro-European option realize that a referendum on Moldova’s European choice will anyway be held, and probably before Moldova’s entry into the EU. Last week, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vlad Filat admitted for the first time at such a level that a referendum on the issue may take place simultaneously with the parliamentary elections of November 30. “In the parliamentary elections of this yearend, the people will choose not only the parties but also the country’s development course that they want. The Constitution must provide it clearly that Moldova’s goal is to become a member of the EU, probably by referendum, so that the people can state their opinions. It’s not excluded that a plebiscite will take place simultaneously with the legislative elections. But we haven’t yet discussed this. It is an idea only,” said the Liberal-Democratic leader. In fact, in August 2011, IPN published a series of 12 analytical articles by which it explained the possibility and necessity of enshrining the pro-European option of Moldova in the Constitution.

As things stand like this, we can presume that the organizers of the latest anti-European protests realize their uselessness at this stage and, in reality, pursue goals that will be achieved in the future.

First of all, these are clearly electoral goals, given the approaching legislative elections, while those who pursue them consider that the vehement contrasting of the eastern option and the western one is an electoral trump card that will enable them to mobilize supporters for a rather long period of time. Actually, the given political forces said officially that they already started the election campaign. The competent authorities should take this fact into account as the Electoral Code clearly stipulates the timeframes of the election campaign and the election period.

They also pursue post-election goals in the event that the elections are won again by the pro-European forces, the current and/or other forces. In such a case, the forces that support the other option will have neither legality nor legitimacy for thwarting the European course. They will thus have only to destabilize the social and political situation in Moldova. Or, why should ideas with major exploding potential, such as illegal referendums, the country’s federalization and the exclusiveness of Russian Orthodoxy, be so insistently promoted in the same context with the anti-European actions?

Valeriu Vasilică, IPN