Moldova’s entry into the Customs Union is not a real government option and the parties that promote this project use it for strictly electoral purposes and, after the elections, will continue the country’s European course, Igor Botan, executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), said in the October 16, 2014 public debate “Political culture in the context of polarization of political options in Moldova. Pro-European option: change as a chance and remedies against fear of change”, staged by IPN Agency in partnership with Radio Moldova.
“Opinion polls show six political parties have real chances of entering the future Parliament. Three of them are for the European integration and their option is clear. The other three parties plead for joining the Customs Union. The first, which is the important one, says that they want to review the Association Agreement, not yet to annul it. Another leader said: “In general, I do not understand what the Customs Union is. As to the Association Agreement, we will yet see.” The third political force said they would annul the Association Agreement following the Minsk meeting of President Timofti and Vladimir Putin, who earlier said that Ukraine postponed for a year and we should also postpone, while now says that we should review our decision. So, of the three political forces of the left that supposedly plead for the Eurasian integration, one said that the Association Agreement should remain, but it must be reviewed. Another one says that it does not know what is there in the other part and they will yet see, while the third is very flexible – from the annulment to revision. I think this clearly shows that we were right to choose the European integration course and these political forces, if they enter Parliament, will do the same,” stated Igor Botan.
The project’s permanent expert noted that coming closer to the EU was a voluntary decision. “Not the European Union made us move towards it. The EU told us one thing: we want to have predictable partners at our borders, where there will be no trafficking in drugs, arms and people and other ugly things that happened. The EU told us to be stable and to do three things that we must do. All these things are stipulated in the Association Agreement: one – to develop appropriate infrastructure and the EU helped us a lot in this respect as we are a poor country; two – to create a business environment and the issues related to economy and trade represent 95% of the Association Agreement, and three – to ensure independent justice,” he explained.
According to him, the reason why the Customs Union is intensely promoted in Moldova as an alternative to the EU is that some of the parties use this issue for electoral speculations. “In Moldova there are electoral segments controlled by political parties that speculate on this subject and on the historical imprints on our people. I consider that things after the elections will return to normality,” stated Igor Botan.
The October 16 debate also involved the Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova Pirkka Tapiola and director of the Institute for Political Analysis and Consultancy “Politicon” Anatol Taranu. This was the 34th of the series of debates “Development of political culture in public debates”. IPN Agency stages these debates the third consecutive year with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation and in cooperation with Radio Moldova.
