by
Martin Banks
As the bloc presses ahead with deeper ties with East European nations in defiance of Russia, it was also recently announced that Moldovan citizens will no longer require visas to travel to the EU.
But this and other recent developments, such as Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca saying on Tuesday that the country aims to join the EU by 2019, has merely served to reopen debate about the country´s suitability for closer ties with the EU.
As part of its response to the Ukraine crisis, the EU has said it will accelerate the partnerships with states like Moldova but, lest it be forgotten, Ukraine's quest for EU ties triggered the current crisis in relations with Moscow.
Is the same about to happen with Moldova?
What appears clear is that the EU and Russia are locked in a Ukraine-type tug of war on Moldova.
Russia insists that Moldova's EU rapprochement will jeopardise the future of Transnistria, a breakaway territory located on the border between Moldova and Ukraine.
One centre right Polish MEP told this site, "Some might argue that there is a contradiction in the EU´s approach. After all, one of EU’s top demands for Moldova is that it still has to ´intensify the fight´ against corruption at all levels.”
Indeed, there are various concerns over Moldova which include the fact that it remains one of the major players in the sex trafficking industry.
Moldova´s National Bureau of Statistics estimates 25,000 Moldovans, including men, women and children, were trafficked abroad in 2008.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, the majority of victims are women and girls who are trafficked for the purpose of sexual and labour exploitation.
Meanwhile, recent European Commission report says countries round the EU’s southern and eastern rim, including Moldova, are seeing an increase of instability, authoritarianism and corruption.
EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele noted the EU spent €2.6 billion on "neighbourhood policy" states last year and has earmarked €15.4 billion for 2014 to 2020
These include Moldova, a former Soviet republic which was part of Romania before being annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II.
Landlocked between Romania and Ukraine, Russian is widely spoken in Moldova and it has an ethnic Russian population.
In fact, Moldova, despite being the darling of EU officials, has the lowest income per capita of any of the Eastern Partnership countries.
The EU allocated €526m to Moldova between 2007 and 2013 but its Gross National Income of US 2,250 dollars, despite increasing four-fold since 2002, is only a quarter of that of neighbouring Romania.
According to the Program for International Student Assessment, Moldova remains at the bottom of European rankings in terms of quality of education and Moldova´s Institute of Strategic Research and Reforms predicts that, if the trade deal with the EU is signed, Chisinau will have to implement over 300 directives in 3 to 4 years.
Many question its ability to undertake such a task.
Further, the importance of keeping both export directions open is underlined by the fact that while 50% of Moldova´s trade goes to the EU, 50% goes to CIS countries.
While Chisenau, for some, is seen as the champion of the EU's Eastern association process for now, things could heat up this year with a victory for the Communist opposition in November's election likely to delay its EU integration.
Last May, concern was voiced at EU level when Moldova's parliament gave itself powers to sack Constitutional Court judges and change election rules, moves Brussels said would harm the country's bid for closer ties with the EU.
The laws were part of "a worrying new pattern of decision-making in Moldova ... where the institutions of the state have been used in the interest of a few", EU officials said.
Any assessment of Moldova´s suitability for signing an Association Agreement should also take account of what is happening "on the ground" on this issue.
Currently, there are divisions in Moldovan society over which is the best way to go - signing the deal or not. In asking if Moldovan society supportive of the agreement it is worth recalling that an overwhelming majority of voters in a 2 February referendum held in the autonomous Moldovan region of Gagauzia voted for integration with a Russia-led customs union.
The chairwoman of Gagauzia's election commission, Valentina Lisnic later said that 98.4 percent of voters had chosen closer relations with the CIS Customs Union.
In a separate question, 97.2 percent were against closer EU integration.
Gagauzia Governor Mihail Formuzal does not hide his personal preferences, saying, "I think that for the next 10 years it is in our interest to be in the customs union. I think that would enable us to modernize our economy, secure reliable markets for our goods."
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's deputy PM and special envoy on Transniestria, agrees, saying that if the EU signs the deal next month he “will insist on revising economic relations with Moldova”, which is 100 percent dependent on Russian gas.
Moldova, he says, should hold elections before signing anything, with the pro-Russian opposition, the Communist party, polling high before a scheduled vote in November.
With Ukraine being torn apart, Willy Fautre, of Brussels-based Human Rights Without Frontiers, predicts, "Moldova will certainly be the next battlefield. The EU neighbourhood policy has totally failed in the case of Ukraine and there is no chance of better success with Moldova."
Some EU government ministers are sympathetic to Russia's concerns.
Austria's foreign minister Sebastian Kurze said if the EU signs deal with Moldova it should also offer a “long-term” free-trade perspective to Russia "so these countries are not torn between the EU and a Eurasian customs union."
Kurz said that he did not live through the Cold War and does not want a new one.
“It makes no sense to pretend Russia doesn't exist and that these countries don't have economic relations with Russia … We don't need a confrontation between the EU and Russia,” he said.
Elzbieta Kaca, a researcher at Pism, a Warsaw-based think tank, says that EU aid for reforms in Eastern Partnership countries like Moldova has so far failed to bring tangible results.
For seven years now, the EU has made direct transfers to the state budgets of its eastern partners (minus Belarus) to support reforms in anything from energy and justice to water sanitation.
A total of around €1.2 billion, 60 percent of bilateral aid, was envisaged for this so-called budget support, with Moldova being among those receiving the highest amounts.
She asks, "What happened with this aid, given the different attitudes of eastern governments to EU-style reforms, let alone their problems with corruption and inefficient public administration? "
The answer from a major research project carried out at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (Pism) is that too often nothing happened. In the cases of Moldova and Georgia, Brussels managed to release around half the promised resources; but due to lengthy procedures, the majority of operations have not yet been finalised.
Where the EU did manage to spend money Kaca says it brought "very slim" results. The recipient administrations were at ease drafting strategies, but implementation lagged behind.
Gernot Erler, Germany's new chief of relations with Russia and the eastern neighbourhood, warned that if countries like Moldova enter a "deep free trade agreement" with the EU, Moscow fears that these markets will be flooded with cheap Western products, which would undermine Russian exports.
"I can understand this concern. I don't know what the solution will look like, but it seems possible and this is currently being assessed by experts,” he noted.
Further comment comes from UK foreign minister William Hague who said recently that he wants Moldova "to make more progress on reform and in the fight against corruption."
A joint statement following the meeting on 15 May between the European Commission and the Moldovan government reiterated the need to "fight corruption, including high-level one, reform the justice sector and improve the business and investment climate."
Commission spokesman Peter Stano told this website, "We are stressing that the association agreement is not a choice between Moscow and Brussels, it is a choice for more stable, more prosperous future. Closer cooperation brings benefits for all and previous examples have shown that the agreement contributes to job creation, increase of GDP, investment and better choice and lower prices for consumers. It is exactly with the AA/DCFTA we think Moldova will head into a future where its modernised economy will be able to sustain the country without outside dependency. And it is not at Russia's expense because Russia can benefit from this too."
Even so, Georg Zachmann, from the leading Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, cautions, "In economic terms, signing the DCFTA between the EU and Moldova might have a short-term cost for Moldova in case Russia will use its economic leverage, for example, cutting remittances, gas exports and imports from Moldova."
Another respected commentator, Michael Emerson, of the Centre for European Policy Studies, asks, "Is Moldova ready for EU membership?"
His reply? "Of course not."
Hrant Kostanyan, head of EU foreign policy at CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies), said, "Moldova has to engage in serious reforms adopting and implementing big part of the EU legislation as envisioned in the agreement. This is indeed challenging for Moldova since comprehensive domestic reforms require significant costs and political will.The implementation has to be carried out by Moldovan government."
Finally, UK Independence Party MEP Roger Helmer commented, "I should have thought that the EU had done enough damage in the Ukraine, and would avoid prodding the Russian Bear again for a little while. If Moldova is anything like Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, then it would not be ready for EU membership."
By: N. Peter Kramer
