🇲🇩🇬🇪 A Demand for Independence and a Farewell to Euro-Utopia

On November 20, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “A New Dream? Elections in Moldova and Georgia as a Marker on the Road to Sovereignty”.

💬 Moderator Andrei Sushentsov noted that the current trend in the former Soviet Union to seek autonomy contradicts the long-standing tendency to compensate for an unwillingness to solve complex domestic political problems by turning to promises of European integration.

💬 Constantin Starîş, a Member of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, called the trend toward independence in relation to Moldova more social than political. Within the country, the government has effectively failed both in the elections and in the referendum. The reasons for this are related, among other things, to the contradiction between the pro-European rhetoric of the authorities and their “anti-European” practices. The European course did not imply confrontation with Russia – and against this background, it was supported by the majority of Moldovan society. However, over the past four years, it has become the only alternative, and for some time now, even aggressively confrontational, which has caused protests among the population.

💬 Natalia Kharitonova, a professor at the Department of International Security and Foreign Policy of Russia, RANEPA, regretfully admitted that Moldova is currently continuing to follow the path of Ukraine. She noted that Maia Sandu was elected for the first time under completely different slogans, but did not fulfil her election promises. According to Kharitonova, Sandu is not an independent figure and is fulfilling the will of Western forces, while ignoring the interests of Moldovans. Her team had to resort to large-scale manipulations, for which the West gave carte blanche. Now we should expect purges in the ruling party, the persecution of oppositionists, the further infringement of the rights of residents of Gagauzia and increasing anti-Russian rhetoric.

💬 Archil Sikharulidze, founder of the Sikha Foundation (Georgia), presented his assessment of the situation in Georgia. The victory of Georgian Dream, according to him, was “absolutely predetermined” - it could only lose if all opposition parties united. However, the opposition in Georgia does not have a clear political platform. It does not recognize any institutions, and willingly transfers the legislative process to the streets, which society has long been tired of. Radical pro-European rhetoric also does not appeal to the electorate, which demands balance, stability, economic growth and the absence of war.

💬 Vyacheslav Sutyrin, Director of the Centre for Scientific Diplomacy and Advanced Academic Initiatives at MGIMO, emphasised that if at first glance nothing new happened in Moldova and Georgia – a deep split has long been noticeable within Moldovan society, and the Georgian Dream has won elections in Georgia more than once: in a broader context, what is happening looks like a kind of watershed. For the first time, Georgia has received harsh threats from the West, but the Georgian leadership has not succumbed to them – and has received massive support within the country. “Hopes for a bright future are no longer associated with the Euro-Atlantic perspective,” Sutyrin noted.

💬 Richard Sakwa, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Kent (UK), believes that the structural transformations in the European Union provide an important key to understanding what is happening. At the conceptual level, the EU used to be a peaceful project, but now it has become, according to the President of the European Commission. Ursula von der Leyen, a geopolitical organisation. In particular, this means subordinating the law to politics. The European Union is becoming a political agent that imposes its goals, acting in the logic of conflict. As a result, the European Union has partially lost its appeal. Relatively recently, joining it was a utopia that people believed in, but now everything has changed.