Moldova–Romania border

Bessarabia

The land between the Prut and the Dniester, Bessarabia, was part of the principality of Moldavia until Russia annexed it by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812. Lower Bessarabia went back to Moldavia after the Crimean War, only to be ceded to the tsar again in 1878. After the Russian Revolution a Moldavian–Bessarabian republic was set up, Romanian troops entered, and the local legislature asked to join Romania; a 1920 treaty with the Allies recognised the union.^[1]

The Soviet government never accepted it, while Romania held that the population was predominantly Romanian and the merger legal. On 26 June 1940, after Germany had recognised Soviet interest in Bessarabia in a secret protocol, the Soviet Union demanded it, and Romania gave way two days later. Romania retook the area in 1941 but lost it again under the 1944 armistice, and the 1947 peace treaty confirmed the 1940 line along the Prut, which a joint commission marked in 1948–49.^[1]

“The Soviet Government maintained that the action was illegal and never recognized the loss of Bessarabia.”^[1]

The EU’s edge

The Prut valley is flat and wide, 2.5 to 10 miles across, with lakes and swamps.^[1] When Romania joined the EU at the start of 2007, visa rules suddenly closed a border that many Moldovans crossed for school, work, family and trade; visits to Romania fell threefold in early 2007 compared with a year earlier.^[2]

Most Moldovans speak Romanian, and Romanian law lets them regain the citizenship their families lost after the Soviet annexation. By the end of 2020, 642,149 of Moldova’s 2.7 million people had Romanian citizenship, which also brings the right to live and work in the EU.^[3]