“The relations between our states, starting with the proclamation of Moldova’s statehood in 1991, witnessed periods of more intense work done in concert and less favorable periods,” said the diplomat. According to Marius Lazurca, during his tenure the relations between Romania and Moldova have been very intense and the pro-European policies of the successive governments of Moldova had important openness towards Romania. “There are parties in Moldova that seem to be reconsidering the geopolitical option, but it would be hard to imagine a pro-European geopolitical option with political and ideological reserve towards Romania. Everyone knows that Europe begins from the Prut River and Moldova actually has one EU member state as its neighbor, and the road to the EU after crossing the Prut goes through Romania. There are also sociological reasons that urge any responsible political person from Chisinau to put the European and Romanian priorities on the same scale,” he stated.
The ambassador said that according to sociological surveys, the image of the typical pro-European from Moldova is identical with that of the typical pro-Romanian from Moldova. This is a person younger than 45 who speaks Romanian, has higher education and has in general higher than medium incomes. These two categories, as all the sociological profiles, have their own approximations, but are identical. “Any government that wants to build on the pro-European policies must focus on this group. It is a group of citizens who will equally support the pro-European orientation and the openness to Romania,” said the Romanian diplomat.
He underlined that besides language, there is culture and other elements that must determine Romania and Moldova to have good relations. “There are also other indicators that must push us to have good relations for the European modernization of the Republic of Moldova. Moldova is a post-Soviet state and Romania has similar experience, even if to a smaller extent. It is joint experience that reveals certain differences. Our experience is much more limited than the experience of Moldova, which appeared on the ruins of the Soviet Union. But in Romania nobody is nostalgic for the Soviet Union and this is not a common thing,” stated Marius Lazurca.
In Romania, the Soviet Union has a negative image and what makes Romania different from Moldova is the fact that by joining the EU the Romanian citizens managed to switch from a centralized, order-based political model to an open market with free access, to a freer society.
“In 1989, in the December revolution, I was mature enough to understand what was going on in my country. There was a great anti-communist feeling that continues to exist today. Naming someone communist in Romania is a very serious offense. We formed as an active anti-Communist generation, as pro-Europeans. Without these two stimuli, Romania’s success in creating a border between what was and what should be wouldn’t have been possible. And there was the wish to return to the European family,” said Marius Lazurca.
He noted that Romania can be a model for Moldova in the European integration process because the two states have many things in common, but the Moldovan government must realize that implementing automatically Romanian’s experience in the pre-accession period without own analyses is not enough.
“Even if we have common things, in Romania there is no linguistic phenomenon as in Moldova. We must not forget about this when we exchange experience. The prestigious status of the Russian Federation shows that a part of the citizens of Moldova perceive it as a source of power, prestige, glory and respect. In Romania you will not find something like this. We are further from the center of attraction. As we weren’t a Soviet state, we were less influenced by the policies of Moscow,” stated Marius Lazurca.
The debate “Romania as a model for Moldova’s European course” is the 30th of the series of debates “Development of political culture in public debates” that are organized by IPN in concert with Radio Moldova and are supported by Germany’s Hanns Seidel Foundation.
