With a population of just 2.6 million and one of the smallest economies in Europe, Moldova barely registers by most European Union metrics. Yet the small former Soviet republic wedged between EU member Romania and war-ravaged Ukraine has drawn outsized attention from the continent’s powerful democracies and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The country’s aspiration to join the E.U. will now be enshrined in the Constitution but the referendum was incredibly close.

Members of an electoral commission count votes after polling stations closed in the course of Moldova's presidential election and a referendum on joining the European Union, in Chisinau, Moldova October 20,