Speaker of the Georgian Parliament: Moldova’s Path to the EU Means Losing Sovereignty, Ours is Independent

According to Reuters, around 1.5 million Moldovan citizens have Romanian citizenship, but recent polls show that only around a third of the population supports the idea of reunification with Romania. Sandu acknowledged that her position is not shared by the majority of citizens. The Moldovan president’s statement was commented on by the speaker of the Georgian parliament and one of the leaders of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Shalva Papuashvili. According to him, the president’s intention to vote against the independence of her own country “makes the situation extremely clear”. “In this sense, yes, we are indeed lagging behind Moldova. But we cannot abandon our three thousand years of history, which prove that if you believe in your national identity, even a ‘small country’ is capable of preserving its statehood in the historical maelstrom,” Papuashvili said. He also noted that, in his opinion, Sandu’s statement reflects the Moldovan leadership’s skepticism about the country’s prospects for independent accession to the European Union. “For us, the question is simple: Georgia’s European path is the path of an independent state, not its abolition,” the speaker added. Relations between Tbilisi and Chisinau deteriorated following Georgian Dream’s decision on November 28, 2024, to suspend the process of European integration. Previously, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine had coordinated their steps toward EU accession. All three countries applied for membership in 2022, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.