“The lack of pluralism in Moldova is a strong brake in developing the ties between Moldova and the European Union,” stated Nicu Popescu, an expert with the London-based European Council for Foreign Relations, at public debates in Chisinau, Info-Prim Neo reports. The political analyst says Moldova is 1.5 years back Ukraine in ties with the European Union, despite the political instability in Ukraine. According to Nicu Popescu, structurally, Moldova has all the opportunities to get closer to the EU, but the Moldo-EU relations are held back by the lack of genuine pluralism. Because of the same reason, holding fair and democratic elections is a crucial rpe-condition to step up the Moldovan-EU ties. “It is also important that cases as the PRO TV cameraman (allegedly beaten by police – e.n.) should not happen because they are taken very seriously,” Nicu Popescu said. According to him, such incidents give grounds to those factors from the EU, who do not want to develop the relations with Moldova and want to hold back the process. “If the parliamentary elections are fair, Moldova has all the chances top speed up getting closer to the EU, to reach and even overcome Ukraine by 1.5-2 years,” concluded Nicu Popescu, an expert with the European Council for Foreign Relations. The public debates were organized Monday by the Foreign Policy Association.