President Maia Sandu said the bill that passed Romania’s lower chamber of deputies was actually meant to discredit the idea.
President Sandu herself supports union with Romania in the right circumstances, but the draft that passed Romania’s lower chamber of deputies this week was initiated by a party with pro-Russian views and was not genuine, she said.
Moscow opposes unification of Moldova, a former Soviet republic, with Romania.
Sandu said the move aimed to “discredit the idea of union” and called SOS party leader, Diana Sosoaca, “an agent of Moscow.”Sosoaca is vocal about her pro-Moscow views.
“It is as if I were going to Parliament tomorrow with a legislative initiative in which I would propose that we want France to become part of the Republic of Moldova (and ) I ask the Government to implement it. This is not how the unification is done, we all understand very well,” Sandu said.
Asked if a referendum on unification with Romania could be held in the near future, she said such a scenario was not imminent.
SOS’ bill was submitted to Parliament on April 14 and was negatively endorsed by the Government, as well as by the Legal Commission and the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
However, in the absence of a debate and a vote in the plenary, the draft was considered tacitly adopted on June 24. It will be sent to the Senate which will vote on it.
Under the bill, the Romanian Parliament would vote on unification of Romania with Moldova. The document also empowers the Romanian Government to start negotiation “urgently, immediately” with authorities in Chisinau.
Sandu has repeatedly spoken about a potential union between the Moldova and Romania, and says that she would support the idea if a referendum is held on this issue.
She said that Chisinau could analyze the possibility of reunification as an alternative route for accession to the EU, if the accession process stagnates in comments made in Strasbourg in May.
According to an iData survey, currently 41% of Moldovan citizens support unification while the level of support is considerably higher in Romania with about 72% of Romanian citizens supporting it.
On March 27, 2018, on the 100th anniversary of the union of Bessarabia (the Romanian name for today’s Moldova) with Romania, Romania’s Parliament adopted a declaration stating that Romania “will always be ready” to meet any reunification approach, if the citizens of the Republic of Moldova want it.
Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, who has pro-Russian views, accused Bucharest of being ‘imperialist’ and of “preparing the territorial annexation of the Republic of Moldova.”
Romania Parliament adopts draft law to ‘urgently’ start negotiations to unite with Moldova
