-Analysis-
PARIS — The polls were predicting a 60% “yes” vote. But in the end, it was a razor-thin majority: 50.39% voted in favor of the referendum to include a European vocation in Moldova’s constitution. It was the Moldovan diaspora vote, more clearly pro-European, that saved the day for President Maia Sandu. She finds herself in a difficult position in the presidential election, the first round of which also took place on Sunday.
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The double vote in this small country of just 33,000 square kilometers, one of the poorest in Europe, took on a major geopolitical dimension — just like the parliamentary elections taking place next Sunday in Georgia, in the Caucasus. At stake is the fate of these two nations, torn between Russian influence and Europe’s power of attraction, between post-Soviet burdens and a European horizon.
Following the reorganization of the continent in the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, three countries were left orphans, neither integrated into NATO nor fully in the Russian orbit: Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Ukraine is at war with Russia, and the other two are in a more insidious conflict.
An unfair battle
Moldova’s courageous president said on the social media platform X on Monday that she had “fought honestly in an unfair battle.” She was referring to the accusations of Russian interference that her government had been leveling for several days.
The pro-European government accuses Moscow of having financed the purchase of some 300,000 votes, which could have tipped the referendum. On Monday, the BBC broadcast interviews with voters who admitted having been paid by intermediaries.
The European Union actively supported the president, but that wasn’t enough.
The situation in Moldova is complex. One region, Transnistria, has been occupied for three decades by the Russian army, and the opposition is openly pro-Russian. This is the danger Sandu faces in the second round, when she faces the pro-Russian camp.
The European Union actively supported the president, including a trip to Chisinau by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen with a large cheque. But that wasn’t enough.
The same game, different tools
The very narrow victory in the referendum has already been denounced by Russian propaganda, and will weaken the president in the second round. It is this battle for influence that will determine the next step in Moldova’s European adventure as a candidate for EU membership.
The close Moldovan vote may also have an impact on the Georgian elections, which are taking place along the same fault line, but with pro-Russians in government and pro-Europeans on the streets.
In Moldova and Georgia, Putin is playing the same game as in Ukraine.
On Monday evening, a huge demonstration in favor of Europe took place in Tbilisi, but the pro-Russian government has shown in recent months that it knows how to repress and keep control.
In Moldova and Georgia, Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing the same game as in Ukraine: preventing the components of the former USSR from joining Europe. He is not using the same weapons as in Ukraine, but other instruments from his destabilizing toolbox.
Europe is doing what it can, but it is fighting on unequal terms. It risks losing everything to an adversary with no limits.
