This month's cover story explores the implications of Moldova's recent elections for the EU.
Moldova, a slight, former Soviet state nestled between Romania and Ukraine, became the stage for one of Europe’s most consequential political tests this autumn. In late September, Moldovan voters dealt Moscow a forceful rebuke by handing President Maia Sandu’s pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity a decisive victory in the country’s parliamentary elections.
As Federica Di Sario reports in our cover story this month from Moldova’s capital city, Chișinău, the win was far from preordained. In the days leading up to the vote, polls showed a narrow lead for the Russia-friendly Patriotic Electoral Bloc, amid what Moldovan officials described as a €300 million interference campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Yet the outcome was clear: more than half of Moldovans reaffirmed their desire for a future in the EU, rejecting Moscow’s disinformation and intimidation tactics. At the same time, the election exposed a tension at home: in an effort to secure victory, Sandu’s party implemented measures — including banning two pro-Russia parties days before the vote — that critics described as antidemocratic.
Still, the election result was hailed by many in the EU as “a lesson for all of Europe on how to defeat Russian interference,” as one Romanian lawmaker put it. For European leaders, Moldova — an EU candidate country that could now see its accession process accelerated — stands as proof that the bloc’s combination of political and financial support can still deliver.
But the stakes extend far beyond one election. Russia’s hybrid playbook — from covert financing and cyberattacks to propaganda and recent drone incursions into Danish airspace — continues to test European and NATO cohesion.
At the same time, the EU must contend with persistent uncertainty over Washington’s security guarantees, even as Moscow presses on with its nearly four-year war in Ukraine. Moldova’s election shows the bloc can influence outcomes at its borders, but it also highlights Europe’s vulnerability.
As the EU seeks to reinforce its security, convince a mercurial American president of the value of transatlantic solidarity, and sustain enlargement momentum amid the unrelenting war in Ukraine, it needs to confront the reality that Russian efforts to destabilise its neighbourhood are persistent, sophisticated and increasingly hard
to counter.
— Christopher Alessi, Editor-in-Chief