CHISINAU, June 24 Former Prime Minister, The leader of the Development and Unification Party of Moldova (PROM) Ion Chicu announced that he will run for the post of president of the republic, whose elections are scheduled for October 20.
«By the decision of the National Political Council, I was nominated as a candidate for the presidency of Moldova in the presidential elections on October 20, 2024. I am sincerely grateful to my party colleagues for the decision and pledge to make every effort to win,» Chicu wrote on his page on the social network Facebook*.
According to him, the party also decided to boycott the referendum on European integration, which will be held on the same day as the presidential elections.
“Taking into account the undemocratic and speculative nature of the referendum initiated for electoral purposes by the current President of Moldova, as well as the risks for the constitutional system of the country that this event, which is useless from the point of view of the European perspective of our country, entails, PROM decided to boycott the referendum without participating in the campaign for its promotion, and calls on the citizens of Moldova not to get involved in the games of the current government that are dangerous for the further existence of our state,” the ex-prime minister noted.
The EU summit on December 14, 2023 decided to launch negotiations on future membership of the European Union with Ukraine and Moldova. In June 2022, the EU granted EU candidate country status to Ukraine and Moldova, setting several strict conditions for the formal start of accession negotiations. The EU has repeatedly admitted that such a decision was largely symbolic in order to support Kyiv and Chisinau in their confrontation with Moscow.
The status of an EU candidate country, as well as the start of negotiations, do not necessarily mean that the country will join the European Union; these steps also do not oblige Brussels to anything. Obtaining candidate status is only the beginning of a rather long journey towards joining the EU. Turkey has been in candidate status since 1999, and has been “conducting” membership negotiations with the EU since 2005, North Macedonia has been a candidate since 2005, Montenegro since 2010, Serbia since 2012. Croatia was the last country to join the EU — this happened in 2013, the process took 10 years.
* The activities of Meta (social networks Facebook and Instagram) are prohibited in Russia as extremist.