Unirea Farce: How Moldova’s Elite Laid Bare Its Own Emptiness

Sergiu CEBAN

The scandal-ridden bill on the unification of the two Romanian states, which sailed through the lower house of the neighboring country’s parliament with startling speed, has left Maia Sandu and her loyalists, who have spent the entire year performing devotion to unionist ideals, in an awkward and patently foolish position. As ever, it has transpired that the lofty rhetoric of our current rulers contains precisely nothing of substance

The current political regime, and, by extension, our society at large, has grown accustomed to inhabiting a world of perpetual simulation: of reforms, of European integration, of competent governance, of feigned strategic thinking about the country’s destiny. Yet last week, Romania’s Chamber of Deputies, operating under the so-called “tacit approval” procedure, passed a bill on the unification of the two countries, tabled by the parliamentary group SOS România, led by the scandal-ridden Diana Sosoaca. And then it became starkly apparent that everyone in Chisinau who has spent the year liberally indulging in unionist rhetoric has absolutely no idea what to do with the issue now that it has suddenly materialized as a tangible political fact. The reaction of our “leaders” proved predictably pathetic. For several days, pro-government media, pundits, and officials maintained a studious silence, as though they had all taken a vow of muteness, diligently ignoring the news as if it concerned the renaming of a street rather than an existential question about the very (non)existence of the country. Eventually, Maia Sandu and Igor Grosu did let drop a couple of awkward phrases to the effect that they are not, in principle, opposed to the idea but that the bill’s author is a notorious “Moscow agent”, rendering the entire project toxic and beyond discussion. The courtier media obediently picked up the narrative, deftly shifting focus from the substance of the bill to the persona of Sosoaca. This has, by now, become a classic fixture of the anti-crisis communications playbook, honed across many countries in recent years. Its logic is exceedingly simple: if you cannot convincingly counter or articulate your own position, simply pin everything on “Kremlin machinations”. Any topic, once so branded, is automatically rendered beyond the pale. But whatever anyone may say, the reality is that Sandu and her entourage have landed themselves in a textbook case of zugzwang. On the one hand, to back the bill is to be associated with Soaoaca – and for any European-facing politician, not only in Moldova but in Romania itself, that is political suicide. On the other hand, to withhold support is to publicly confess the insincerity of all the unionist posturing of recent months. And, at bottom, if the idea of uniting the two Romanian states is indeed correct and historically justified, what possible relevance does the surname of the document’s author carry? It is, after all, Romania’s senators who would vote on it, not Sosoaca alone. Yet Sandu has effectively disavowed the initiative, thereby furnishing her own answer to the question of what her grand declarations on unirea are actually worth. The official version emanating from Bucharest that the bill was “tacitly adopted” amid an internal political crisis is, in its own way, equally “original”. The explanation, frankly, comes across as no less scandalous than the very fact of the bill’s advancement. As is well known, the draft was submitted to the Chamber of Deputies as far back as 14 April. For ten weeks it sat on various parliamentary desks, passing through multiple factions and committees staffed by a small army of elected representatives, each with their own secretariats and apparatus. And we are now asked, just like that, to believe that over all this time not a single deputy, not a single adviser, not a single faction leader noticed the procedural trajectory this document was on. When one hears such interpretations, the unavoidable impression is of being treated if not as a fool outright, then at the very least as someone utterly devoid of critical thinking. In other words, we are to believe that the legislative body of a European Union and NATO member state just so happened to “accidentally” let slip a bill with the potential to redraw the political map of Europe. To any Western capital monitoring developments in the region, such an account sounds either like a confession of total institutional paralysis within the Romanian parliament or a smokescreen for something carried out quite deliberately. That is why an inescapable conspiratorial dimension has crept into the whole affair. As to who the real architect and beneficiary of this plotline might be, and what the ultimate objective of the “operation” actually is, that will, in all likelihood, become clearer somewhat later. For our part, only one thing is plainly obvious: accidents of this magnitude simply do not occur. It goes without saying that the bill’s passage through the lower house elevates the unionist idea to the status of a precedent even if, for the moment, one without tangible consequences. Yet, be that as it may, the draft law has already left a legal imprint on Romania’s political history. The initiators’ core design, it would seem, was to test the elites of both countries for nerve: to ascertain whether they are prepared to move unirea from the realm of romantic abstraction into the actual political agenda. The result of that test has, in truth, proved highly eloquent. We have long grown accustomed to the fact that the theme of uniting the two Romanian states has been exploited in politics for more than a decade now. Whenever ratings dip, scandals pile up, and real promises remain unfulfilled, our so-called “leaders” suddenly rediscover it. It has always been a failsafe trump card that appeals to powerful emotions, demands no real action, and allows the wielder to pose as a statesman thinking in terms of grand historical missions. Maia Sandu reached for this simple device this year at precisely the moment when the pledge of Moldova’s swift accession to the EU began to stall and morph into a distant horizon devoid of clear timelines or guaranteed prospects. The first half of the year brought a veritable cascade of “coming-out” moments: one after another, Moldovan politicians confessed to a long-concealed devotion to unirea – a devotion they had, for some reason, been forced to suppress through gritted teeth. We were treated to “Plan Bs”, “alternative pathways”, “historical shortcuts”, and every other manner of scheme designed to replace the faltering European narrative with something equally lofty. Yet behind this avalanche of words lay precisely nothing: no implementation model, no analysis of economic or constitutional repercussions, no discussion of timelines, stages, or anything of the sort. Not a word about what a prospective reunification would mean for those Moldovan citizens who reject the project, for the country’s Russian-speaking population, for Gagauzia, for the Transnistrian settlement. In essence, it was all just talk, predicated on the assumption that no one would ever demand specifics. There is an old adage at play: if elites fail to create the conditions for their own strategic agency, they will inevitably find themselves conscripted into someone else’s game. And that is precisely what has happened. For years, the official leaderships in Chisinau and Bucharest cultivated unionist rhetoric without ever taking a single step toward transforming it into a serious political project. So, when somebody else, even a figure as odious as Sosoaca, went ahead and took that step, it turned out there was nothing to say in response. Not because the proposal is politically unacceptable, but because no homegrown concept exists in the first place. The Romanian senators will, of course, still have their say on the substance, and the story of this bill will find some form of continuation. But Sandu and her loyalists have already shown their hand with unmistakable clarity. As ever, the grand pronouncements of Moldova’s current rulers contain nothing of substance and this is no accident. They are perfectly aware that the strategic decisions will not be theirs to make. Moldova’s historical destiny, just as it was centuries ago, is not determined in Chisinau. That is why they can spend an entire year sounding off about unirea with complete abandon and then, the moment the question comes to a head, find it most convenient to duck behind stock phrases about the “hand of Moscow”.