Time to join NATO? Moldova eyes joining ‘a larger alliance’

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is prompting soul-searching in neighboring Moldova about whether the country needs to shift away from its constitutionally-enshrined neutrality and lock itself into a “larger alliance.”

When asked about potential NATO accession, Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said in an interview with POLITICO the country was still weighing its next step, and whether it would require a constitutional change to do so.

“Now, there is a serious discussion … about our capacity to defend ourselves, whether we can do it ourselves, or whether we should be part of a larger alliance,” she said. “And if we come, at some point, to the conclusion as a nation that we need to change neutrality, this should happen through a democratic process.”...