Moldova’s first President says union with Romania was not the goal of proclaiming independence

Mircea Snegur, Moldova’s first President, denies the statements of some politicians that the goal of declaring independence on 27 August 1991 was to unite Moldova with Romania. The mater was not on the agenda, he asserts. Mircea Snegur has told Info-Prim Neo that the primary goal was to obtain independence, which took several stages to reach – the proclamation of the Romanian language as the official language in 1989, democratically-held elections in 1990, and the declaration of sovereignty. Besides, Moldova opposed the referendum proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev, in which the question of USSR’s future was put to popular vote. “Moldova was the only republic to boycott that referendum”, says Snegur, adding that the Kremlin clearly said one year earlier that if that new Union treaty wasn’t signed, Moldova would have two more republics on its territory. Those were leverages used to deter thoughts of independence and make people hostile to that idea. However, in Moldova, even before the putsch in Moscow on 19 August 1991, there were talks about a declaration of independence. “The political class at the time accomplished the goal set after the first democratic elections. The work of almost two yeas was now complete with the proclamation of Independence and the creation of the Republic of Moldova, with all its attributes, domestic and foreign policies, international recognition”, says Mircea Snegur. According to the first President, Moldova’s proclamation of independence was not a spontaneous act, as in other former Soviet republics; the country’s independence had been prepared by the political class, by the intelligentsia, by the entire people.