Romania, Who? Opinion Poll Shows Moldovans Do Not Want Unification with Sister Country Anymore

Unification between Romania and Moldova? No way! This could be the informal conclusion of an opinion poll conducted in the Republic of Moldova, Romania’s sister country.

The opinion poll shows Moldovans would instead choose to join the European Union – EU (50%) or the Eurasian Economic Union – EAEU (49%) than get back to their motherland, Romania (30%) or to NATO (20%). The questions presented unique scenarios, and the respondents didn’t have to choose between them but to answer each one.

The Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs presented the results during an interview offered to a Russian publication, echo.msk.ru, cited by the Moldovan media platform Unimedia.

This is not surprising, but it’s showing the decrease of the desire to unify with Romania in time. This is also a direct result of Romania’s decision to grant citizenship to approx. 625,000 Moldovans. Roughly, for a population of 2.7 million people, one in four also has Romanian citizenship. For all of them, this is a passport for the European Union. Also, for them, Unification is no longer needed, as they already have Romanian citizenship.

In Romania, one study from 2018 shows that almost 60% of the people still want Unification with Moldova.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of Moldovans were offered Russian citizenship. According to the official Russian statistics, from 2016 to 2020, almost 70,000 Moldovans received a Russian passport.

The interview of the Moldovan Foreign Minister comes, coincidence or not, two weeks before the National Day of Romania, marking the Great Union of December 1st, 1918, when the historical provinces of Moldova and Transylvania united with the Romanian Kingdom and creating Unified Great Romania. Sisters within the same motherland, Moldova and Romania, separated in 1940 following the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. Liberated by the Romanian Army one year later, the Russians occupied it again in 1944 until it declared its independence in 1991.