“Moldova wants to join the European Union (EU) “as soon as possible” to protect itself from the threat from Russia, and hopes that the start of negotiations will be decided “in the next few months”, President Sh. Europe, Maya Sandu, in an interview with AFP.

“We believe that we can only save our democracy and we are part of the EU,” Sandu assessed from Iceland, where he participated in the meeting of the Council of Europe. “Russia will continue to be a major force of instability in the next few years, and we must be protected,” the representative of Moldova added.

The small nation of 2.6 million people, enclaved between Romania and Ukraine, will celebrate a major summit on June 1 that will bring together the leaders of the 27 EU countries and 20 of the bloc’s neighbors. In February, the president of this former Soviet republic accused Russia of plotting a coup against her country.

Sandu, who has led Europe’s poorest country since 2020, called a large pro-European rally on Sunday to demonstrate Moldova’s support for integration into the European bloc.

“The war in Ukraine made things clear: now we can clearly see what the free world wants and what the authoritarian world wants,” Sandu said.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 raised a hypothesis, so far unlikely, regarding the accession of Ukraine and Moldova to the EU in the medium term.

“We believe that (accession) is a realistic project and we hope that it will happen sooner than it becomes possible,” he said, adding that he hoped the start of negotiations would be decided “in the next few months.” The EU granted Ukraine official candidate status in June 2022, but this requires additional reforms, especially in the fight against corruption.

On the other hand, Moldova must solve serious economic and corruption problems, as well as find a way out of the separatist situation in Transnistria, a pro-Russian region of 300,000 people in a country controlled by Russia.

“Tenemos aún temas pendientes, pero estamos trabajando muy duro y es nuestro objetivo main,” reminded Sandu, whose country has just begun withdrawing from the Comunidad de Estados Independientes (CEI), which is led by Russia after the collapse of the USSR.