Putin’s Shadow Looms Over Moldova’s Vote on EU Membership

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(Bloomberg) — At the family plum orchard in the rolling hills northwest of Moldova’s capital of Chisinau, it’s easy to see why Zinaida Plamadeala is keen to ensure her country remains on its path toward European integration.

The company she runs with her brother, PDG Fruct, sells almost all its produce to the European Union, which Moldova has been in talks to join. Plamadeala, 33, now hopes enough of her compatriots will back future membership in a pivotal referendum on Oct. 20.

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“We are a small country that needs to be a part of something bigger, and joining the EU one day is the only way for us,” said Plamadeala as she sorted out export orders on a sunny early autumn day. “Getting off that path would lead us into a period of enormous uncertainty.”

With a population of 2.6 million and one of the smallest economies in Europe, Moldova barely registers by most EU metrics. But the tiny former Soviet republic wedged between EU member Romania and war-ravaged Ukraine has outsized importance when it comes to the continent’s security and countering the threat of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The EU is the biggest investor in Moldova. It’s helped the country break its dependence on Russian natural gas and build electricity infrastructure since Putin’s invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

A procession of European leaders has been passing through Chisinau to champion the EU ahead of the vote, culminating with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week. She said the bloc will allocate €1.8 billion ($2 billion) to support the country’s membership plan.

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“There’s a big milestone ahead for the people of Moldova,” Von der Leyen said. “It is for you, the Moldovans, to decide. It is your sovereign choice what to do with your country and no one can interfere.”

The question is whether the allure of accession into the world’s richest economic club can counter Moscow’s influence and the heightened security threat since the invasion of Ukraine. It’s also one being posed in other parts of the former Soviet sphere, such as in Georgia.   

The Moldovan government and some of its Western allies say Russia is orchestrating a propaganda campaign, financing protests and disinformation. Russia has the support of about a quarter of the population, polls show.

“We need to capture this moment,” Igor Zaharov, European affairs adviser to President Maia Sandu, said in an interview in the nation’s presidential palace. “This is not an enlargement like previous ones. We cannot wait for another five years when the government and parliament might change. We have this very limited window of opportunity.”

Moldova was under Russia’s sphere of influence for decades after independence, run by pro-Moscow governments and presidents, with their opponents failing to shift the country westward. That ended with Sandu’s surprise win in 2020, backed by the diaspora living in the EU.

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The referendum is on whether to amend Moldova’s constitution to enshrine the country’s aim of joining the EU in law. Sandu, who called the vote, faces pro-Russian opponent Alexandr Stoianoglo in the presidential election on the same day.

Support for Sandu stood at 36% in a recent poll compared with 10% for Stoianoglo, who is backed by the Socialist Party. Some 63% of respondents backed joining the EU. About 22% were undecided, though.

Russia, which opposes Moldova’s westward integration, has increased efforts to sway the outcome, according to government and EU officials. US, UK, and Canada earlier this year accused Russia of interfering in Moldova’s presidential election.

Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the claims as “Russophobia,” which Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called “an essential component of the European Moldova project, for which Moldovans are invited to vote in October.”

Dmitri Repetski, a 50-year-old engineer who was campaigning for the Socialist Party, said Moldova needs access to the EU for business but nothing else. He accused Sandu and her government of living in an “alternative reality.”

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“We don’t want to be friends with the EU and to fight Russia,” said Repetski, handing out leaflets in Chisinau. Echoing the line from Russia media, he said Moldova should reject what “they want to impose on us, like being against the Orthodox Church, having LGBT parades and having LGBT influence in schools.”

Moldova received the green light from the EU to open membership talks along with Ukraine. The earliest it could join the EU is 2030, with the biggest tasks being tackling corruption, overhauling the judiciary and what Brussels calls the “deoligarchization” of the country. Unlike Ukraine, it has no aspirations to join NATO, its neutrality written into the constitution. 

Already about 70% of the nation’s exports, mostly fruit and wine, go to the EU, and the economy has been growing again, driven in part by investment because of the prospect of EU membership. Yet gross domestic per capita is still less than half that of Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest member.

Sandu’s decision to call a referendum before negotiations are concluded is designed to make it tougher for opponents to ever undo the integration process. It’s a gamble: if the vote goes against her, talks would be derailed.

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“2030 feels both too soon and too far,” said Olga Rosca, foreign policy adviser to Sandu. “Too soon because there’s still so much to accomplish, and too far away because we face six long years of relentlessly battling Russian interference.”

In Chisinau, home to about a third of Moldovans, it’s easy to forget the division that runs through the country.

People sit in trendy cafes sipping coffee and tapping on laptops connected to free wi-fi. Tree-lined boulevards show off modern architecture abutting grand Soviet-era buildings. Mixed in are pro-EU murals.

Moldova, though, is also home to Transnistria, a breakaway region along the border with Ukraine that has been controlled by Russia for the last three decades in a dormant conflict. Then there’s Gagauzia, an autonomous region to the south of Chisinau that supports Russia. 

The government has been fighting Russian influence on its political process for years, according to Viorel Cernauteanu, chief of Moldova’s police. Now it’s more acute, he said.

“At this time, a few weeks before the EU referendum, these Russian destabilizing activities are at their highest point,” Cernauteanu said in his cramped office in a Chisinau suburb. “The schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated.” 

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In front of him was a laptop that displayed the efforts of Russian special services and pro-Russian oligarchs to bring in illegal funds and use them to spread disinformation, make bribes, extort and stage protests.

Moldovan authorities said this month they uncovered a Russia-backed operation involving 130,000 of its citizens that was designed to influence voting. In September alone, $15 million was transferred from Russia to activists from an electoral bloc affiliated with fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor to be used for disinformation and attacks against public institutions, according to Cernauteanu. 

In another incident, several people were arrested in Chisinau after throwing paint at government buildings, according to a police report. An investigation revealed they were a group of 20 young people who arrived from Moscow by plane via Turkey, police said.

Living next to the war in Ukraine, many Moldovans are concerned about what happens after the referendum — regardless of the outcome. Like in the Baltic states, there’s an entrenched fear that after Ukraine, they might be next.

“We’ve been facing Russian threats since World War II,” said Mariana Rufa, an economist who heads the European Business Association. Her mother was born in Siberia after her grandparents were exiled during Soviet times. “Whatever happens, it cannot be worse. Except of course if there is physical aggression.”

—With assistance from Irina Vilcu.

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