Moldovan President Maia Sandu has said she would vote in favor of unification with Romania, a member of the European Union and NATO, if a referendum were held to help protect her fragile democracy against Russian pressure.
Sandu, whose pro-EU ruling party won a new mandate last September, has repeatedly accused Russia of interfering in Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.4 million people with a Romanian-speaking majority and a Russian-speaking minority.
“If we had a referendum, I would vote for unification with Romania,” she said in an interview with the British podcast “The Rest is Politics,” broadcast on Sunday, Reuters writes, according to Telegraph.
“Look at what’s happening in the world. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for a small country like Moldova to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country, and certainly to resist Russia,” she added.
About 1.5 million Moldovans have Romanian citizenship, but recent polls have shown that only about a third support reunification with Bucharest.
Sandu stressed that she acknowledged that most Moldovans do not support her position, adding that EU integration was a “more realistic objective”.
Its government aims for EU membership by 2030, but will have to implement difficult reforms in the face of opposition from Russia.
Moldova’s pro-Russian socialists were in power only in 2020.
Moldova, which also borders Ukraine, was part of Romania between the two world wars but was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II. It gained independence in 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed. /Telegraph/