From very sharp political statements, the EU should move towards concrete actions to defend the democratic principles and the rule of law that are defined in the Association Agreement signed four years ago, political pundit Dionis Cenusa says in an analysis article for IPN Agency.

The expert noted that for now, Commissioner Johannes Hahn announced that the procedures for disbursing the first installment of the a macro-financial assistance were stopped. This lead to the annulment of the mission that was to assess the fulfilment of the conditions by the Moldovan authorities. Even if Brussels didn’t ask for this expressly, Prime Minister Pavel Filip requested the Ministry of Justice to immediately examine the electoral legislation and identity the existing shortcomings and to submit proposals for improving this for the benefit of the upcoming elections.

According to Denis Cenusa, to begin with, the EU should publicly announce that the provision of macro-financial assistance was postponed until autumn or until after the parliamentary elections for the reason that the political preconditions weren’t fulfilled. The “invalidation of elections” paralyzes the manifestation of the multiparty system and erodes the democratic environment.

The suspension of the budget support should be the next step. This support, unlike the macro-financial assistance, fully consists of grants, which is money that should not be paid back. Even if this could prevent the implementation of at least four programs related to the public administration and police reforms, regional development and the DCFTA, the suspension of assistance is an exceptional measure for a crisis situation. The money that is not allocated for these programs could be transferred to special funds intended for financing projects submitted by Moldova’s civil society.

The third step could be the setting of political conditions that the Moldovan authorities should adopt for the EU budget assistance to be unfrozen. There is the precedent of 2015, when the EU decided to suspend the budget support owing to the banking fraud and imposed a set of conditions for resuming the financial assistance (such a proposal was already formulated by the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, June 29, 2018). The list of priority demands should include the elimination of the mixed voting system or at least the introduction of the second round of voting in  single-member constituencies and the transparent and effective investigation of the banking fraud.

The suspension of the EU assistance imposes a new reality where the government’s position will be more fragile given that this fuels its legitimacy with the pro-European rhetoric. Ultimately, by suspending the budget support the EU will actually strengthen the extraparliamentary opposition’s approach, while the PDM will fall into disgrace whose length will depend on the fulfillment of the imposed conditions, concluded the politologist.