Moldovan President Maia Sandu's unprecedented stance among the country's top leaders aims to highlight Chisinau's European orientation and to urge Brussels to accelerate the process for Moldova – Ukraine's neighbor – to join the European Union amid ongoing Russian interference and internal vulnerabilities.
AFAIK the problem is more that Romania isn’t that interested.
I’m guessing it will be expensive for Romania like the reunification with East Germany was for West Germany.
And where West Germany was ready to take that cost, Romania is not as economically strong as West Germany was.
If Moldova could qualify for EU membership however, I think that would clearly be an option.
Tbh, it could also be an option for the EU to speed up the membership process for Moldavia to protect it from Russian interference (or even invasion if the situation in the Ukraine goes to shit): Let Moldavia join Romania as an autonomous province and pay the bill for Romania. And in the meantime the membership rules would not be compromised and fucking Orban couldn’t do shit.
I like this solution,tbh, but I also fully understand Moldavians wanting to preserve their independence.
And of course there is also the transnistria-Issue.
I agree that it would be a good idea for EU to help Romania if Moldova becomes part of Romania again.
But I don’t think Moldovan independence is the stumbling block here, as they’ve expressed interest in reunifying with Romania multiple times.
Regarding Transnistria, I think their love for Russia will decline dramatically when no help is coming from Russia anymore. And AFAIK that is a problem for them already.
Russia supplied gas to Transnistria, but send the bill to Moldova. But the agreement between Ukraine and Russia to transport gas to Transnistria was not renewed.
Transnistria thought thy could continue to receive gas for almost free as a humanitarian aid from Russia.
Transnistria is currently running on huge budget deficits of 40% last year, as gas from Russia is missing, and export of electricity to Moldova has been halted because Moldova doesn’t want to buy from them anymore. These deficits have no signs of improving, because Transnistria simply doesn’t have any options as long as they choose to depend on Russia.
They still have Russian troops in the " breakaway " province, that will surely be a deal breaker until they can eventually force them out.
I really wish Moldova the best of luck, they’ve gotten a rotten deal for decades with Russia undermining them.