On September 28, parliamentary elections will be held in the Republic of Moldova, which will be decisive for the further political development of the state. The electoral process is taking place amid another struggle to determine the strategic vector of foreign and domestic policy development. The central issue remains the preservation of the integration trajectory towards the European Union, which is of key importance not only for Moldova itself, but also for Ukraine and the region as a whole.
The parliamentary form of government in the country gives particular importance to these elections: it is the parliament, not the president, that has the main levers of government formation and decision-making. Therefore, a victory for pro-Russian political forces would mean the formation of a government that would pursue an alternative course of development, which could lead to a shift towards Russia. In this case, President Maia Sandu, who represents the pro-European line, would e!ectively be removed from decisive influence on state policy and would remain an observer of political transformations. At the same time, even the creation of a coalition with moderately pro-Russian forces will inevitably slow down European integration reforms. Such a format of power is capable of turning progress into a series of compromises that will weaken the dynamics of cooperation with the EU and blur the country’s strategic course.
There is already a clear example of such a reversal within the Black Sea region – the political rollback of winter 2024-2025 in Georgia. In just a few months, there was a reduction in financial support, political isolation, and the termination of military cooperation with the EU, resulting in the freezing of the accession process and Georgia’s complete reorientation towards the Russian Federation. Tbilisi began to build close political and economic ties with Moscow, distancing itself from the European vector. This step signaled that geopolitical drift in the region can happen very quickly and have irreversible consequences.
The Republic of Moldova can expect similar processes in the worst-case scenario of the September 2025 parliamentary elections, i.e., if they result in the formation of a pro-Russian majority. There is a need to determine and analyze the current level of cooperation between Moldova and the EU and the amount of financial assistance, lending, and opportunities that the state risks losing in the event of a sharp political drift to the east. The most relevant and illustrative comparison in this context is with the Georgian scenario.
The political parties that will form the majority coalition and take the top positions based on the voting results will determine both the preservation of Moldova’s pro-European development path and the speed of a possible reversal. There are also two possible scenarios for a shift towards Russia: a “soft” reversal (a partial slowdown in European integration without open confrontation) and a “hard” reversal (a full-fledged pro-Russian course, similar to Georgia).