Munteanu: European Union Didn’t Ask for Constitutional Referendum

The CUB party leader, Igor Munteanu, said that the EU had not asked to organize a constitutional referendum, and most of the EU member states had organized such plebiscites only after the end of accession negotiations. In an interview with Newcast, the politician said that the referendum had been organized by the current government to ‘reaffirm Maia Sandu’s credibility with voters and development partners’, newtv.md reports. ‘Of course, this referendum had a certain manipulative impulse, because nobody asked the Moldovan side to organize a referendum today. The European Union is well aware that systematic efforts to adapt to European standards and norms take time. It requires, first of all, administrative capacity, one of the Copenhagen criteria, which means governance with meritocratic promotion of civil servants capable of performing certain important functions... Now you are not required to make certain commitments to the EU, that is why most countries left referendums confirming commitments to European treaties to the period after the negotiations had been finalized,’ the politician said. The CUB leader also believes that the plebiscite is illegitimate because of its results: ‘Given such a 50.07 per cent margin, in this case the result is illegitimate, because you cannot change the Constitution with such a margin, and you cannot go to Brussels and say: ‘Look, the citizens have spoken, we are Europeans!’,’ Igor Munteanu stressed.