After five months insisting on federalization as a utopia, Sandu Government's Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu revises his claim that Moldova will imminently lose its sovereignty. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, Popescu said the "de facto federalization" would be likely to empower Tiraspol to defer the Chisinau's decisions. 

"Indeed there are considerable risks, probably not about the federalization on paper but the de facto federalization. It will lead to certain arrangements with the Transnistrian region which will likely block the Moldova's capacity to self-govern and possibly allow Russia to wield its influence on the state's future", said former Minister Nicu Popescu. 

Former Defense Minister Anatol Talaru also said that "federalization, as a process and not as an act, as intended through the Kozak memorandum, is a real danger to the future of the Republic of Moldova".

In June, President Igor Dodon presented to former PDM leader Vlad Plahotniuc, a document that provided for the federalization or division of the Republic of Moldova, in exchange for the PSRM-PDM coalition. Then, Dodon proposed that the term of federalization be replaced by "special status" for the Transnistrian region. Democrats vehemently rejected Dodon's proposed deal.