Moldova’s President Sandu says she would vote to join Romania

By Alexander Tanas

CHISINAU, January 12 (Reuters) – Moldovan President Maia Sandu said she would vote in favor of unification with neighboring European Union and NATO member Romania if a referendum was held to help protect her fragile democracy against pressure from Russia.

Sandu, whose pro-EU ruling party took on 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 there was a referendum, I would vote for unification with Romania,” he said in an interview for the British podcast ‘The Rest Is Politics’, broadcast on Sunday.

“Look at what is happening in the world. It is becoming increasingly difficult for a small country like Moldova to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country and, of course, to resist Russia.”

Although about 1.5 million Moldovans have Romanian citizenship, recent polls have shown that only a third support reunification with Bucharest.

Sandu acknowledged that most Moldovans do not support his position, adding that EU integration is “a more realistic goal.”

His government aims to join the EU by 2030 but will have to implement difficult reforms in the face of Russian opposition. Moldova’s pro-Russian Socialists were in power as recently as 2020.

Moldova, which also borders Ukraine, was part of interwar Romania but was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II. It gained independence with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

(Written by Dan Peleschuk, Edited by Gareth Jones)