When the war in Ukraine is over, frozen conflicts should no longer exist. In this connection, the Republic of Moldova must take all the necessary steps to be ready for moment X, when the Transnistrian conflict could be settled, political pundit Igor Boțan stated in IPN’s public debate “NATO Summit: Impact on Ukraine and Moldova”.
The permanent expert of IPN’s project said that important elements were included in paragraph 81 of the final NATO Vilnius Summit declaration and this can be considered a success for Moldova. “The fact that the withdrawal of the Russian troops migrated from the OSCE’s agenda to NATO’s agenda is already an extremely important thing that cannot be ignored,” said Igor Boțan, noting that this war that is being waged by Russia on Ukraine caused tectonic shifts.
“The EU changed its attitude to the countries from the gray zone between the EU and Russia. So, the EU, by giving the go-ahead to Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and eventually Georgia for potential accession to the EU, reached the conclusion that it is dangerous to leave in this gray zone states from which they don’t know what to expect. The second very important thing is that if this signal on the European integration dimension is transmitted, if Ukraine resists, they will surely tell it that the NATO doors are open to it if the accession criteria are met. Ukraine, after the war comes to an end, will definitely profit from this message. Here, in the Republic of Moldova, we receive this message through paragraph 81 – NATO’s involvement in at least the commitments that Russia abandoned after the OSCE Summit held in Istanbul in 1999. So, we have the reiteration of the support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova and the demand to withdraw the Russian troops,” stated the expert.
As to the positions of civil society organizations and society in general, Igor Boțan said there are SCOs that support Moldova’s eventual entry into NATO even if they realize that this is hard to be done. But there are elements of civil society which insist that Moldova should remain neutral and not only militarily, but also politically, as these SCOs maintained at a conference in Switzerland. According to them, Moldova should extend its neutrality to the political messages of support for Ukraine so as not to antagonize Russia farther.
The expert also made reference to the latest opinion polls, which show that the percentage of Moldovans who support Moldova’s accession to NATO grew by almost 5%., noting that this indicator should not be neglected. “This is not insignificant if we remember that in the times of the Soviet Union and more recently, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova were being persuaded that NATO is not a defense alliance, but is an alliance that promotes primarily the interests of the United States,” said Igor Boțan.
The debate entitled “NATO Summit: Impact on Ukraine and Moldova” was the 285th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
