EU must
unblock Moldova’s membership bid, government says after historic vote
Accession
chief Cristina Gherasimov tells POLITICO that Brussels must find a solution to
overcome Hungary’s veto.
September
29, 2025 12:10 pm CET
By
Gabriel Gavin
CHIȘINĂU,
Moldova — EU leaders must take action to ensure Moldova — and neighboring
Ukraine — can become fully-fledged members of the bloc despite Hungary’s
objections, the country’s accession chief urged on Monday.
Speaking
to POLITICO after the governing, pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS)
secured a renewed parliamentary majority overnight, Deputy Prime Minister
Cristina Gherasimov said the clock is now ticking to deliver on a pledge to
join the EU by 2030.
“What
we’ve seen in these elections is that Moldova again has hope for a European
future, and also that we trust the EU,” said Gherasimov. “And now it’s the EU’s
turn to reciprocate. It’s the EU’s credibility in Moldova, a country that chose
[Europe] over and over, again in the last elections.”
European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took to X on Monday to show her
support for the result, telling Moldova “you’ve done it again.”
“You made
your choice clear: Europe. Democracy. Freedom. Our door is open. And we will
stand with you every step of the way,” she wrote.
Moldova’s
application is twinned with Ukraine’s, and Kremlin-friendly Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orbán has repeatedly vowed to block Ukraine joining the union.
As the opening of negotiations requires unanimous support from EU countries,
this has created an impasse that top European leaders and officials are working
to try and circumvent.
The
question of EU membership was firmly on the ballot paper in Sunday’s nationwide
poll. PAS secured more than 50 percent of the vote after campaigning primarily
on the issue against the pro-Russian Patriotic Bloc, which won 24 percent. The
election was subject to “unprecedented” levels of Russian interference designed
to derail Moldova’s pro-EU path, officials warned, with documented evidence of
disinformation and vote-buying attempts.
Gherasimov
said other countries could learn from the unity on display, arguing that what
makes the EU “strong and a global player” is the “unity of the 27 member
states. And the moment when one of the member states hesitates, then the whole
union suffers around it.”
Earlier
Monday, POLITICO reported that European Council President António Costa is
sounding out capitals to try and garner support for a rule change that would
allow negotiating ‘clusters’ to be opened by a qualified majority vote of
countries. While unanimous support would still be needed to green-light final
accession, Costa’s plan would avoid costly delays to the process.
“For us,
it’s important for a solution to be found regardless of what it looks like at
this point,” said Gherasimov. “We very much hope there will be sufficient unity
for a decision to unblock the situation and to move forward with the opening of
the new clusters.”
Orbán is
due to face parliamentary elections of his own in April next year, and is
trailing in the polls behind center-right opposition party Tisza. While a
change of government could see Budapest’s veto dropped, there are concerns that
sufficient progress of key reforms would have to be made in the meantime for
the enlargement process to move ahead.
“We do
hope that the EU will reciprocate, considering the results of the elections,”
said Gherasimov, “because in order to use this historical momentum that we are
in on enlargement, we need to move fast.”
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