At midnight, with more than 90 percent of votes counted and “yes” lagging by almost 10 points, pro-Western President Maia Sandu held an emergency press conference in which she blamed the early tally on “foreign forces” using cash and propaganda to influence the result.
However, overwhelming support for membership from the hundreds of thousands of Moldovans living in European countries, the U.S. and Canada saw the gap narrow.
Siegfried Mureșan, a Romanian MEP who chairs the parliament’s liaison committee working on Moldova’s accession to the EU, said the knife-edge passage of the constitutional referendum “represents a victory for the people of the Republic of Moldova and a defeat for Russia.”
“I will ensure that we, as the European Union, respect the will of the Moldovan people expressed in the referendum and provide all the necessary support for the EU accession process,” he added.
Moscow stands accused of launching a massive campaign of vote buying, funneling cash through its proxies into the accounts of ordinary voters, as well as using social media to sow fears about the prospect of EU membership leading to a direct conflict with Russia.
The result means the government can amend the constitution to enshrine the principle of EU membership, and opens the door to joining the bloc after ongoing talks on accession conclude. Officials are working towards a 2030 deadline to become a member country, and have called on Brussels to commit to the same date.
This story is being updated.