In July 2014, IPN News Agency carried out an awareness raising campaign entitled “Myths and truths about the Association Agreement”, which tackled the main fears related to the process of signing and ratifying this accord. In almost three years, we decided to return to the same sources and the same subjects in order to see how things changed in evolution and if the expectations that existed before the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU were met.
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“The DCFTA with the EU is not better for Moldova than participation in the Customs Union”
Political commentator Anatol Taranu said the arguments provided three years ago in favor of the European integration of Moldova are not only still valid, but obtained even greater consistency. At economic level, Moldova’s exports to the Eurasian area continued to decline. This is mainly due to the fact that the Russian Federation continues to apply the political embargo policy in economic language to the Republic of Moldova. The Moldovan goods were eliminated from the Russian market and their place was taken by other countries, other economies.
According to the commentator, even if this regime is liberalized now, the Moldovan goods can no longer return to the Russian market in the same amount for the simple reason that their place was occupied and competition is stiff.
Anatol Taranu said the upward trend in exports to the EU remained constant despite some oscillations and this is beneficial for Moldova because the EU market imposes quality and standards, while these increase the competition capacity of the Moldovan goods.
“This, in general, had a beneficial effect on the Republic of Moldova because this makes us to modernize and reach higher production standards. It is evident that no profound economic reform occurred in the period and thus we cannot fully make use of the benefits provided by the Association Agreement,” stated the commentator.
Anatol Taranu also said that after the visit made by President Dodon to Moscow, where he criticized the Association Agreement, a lot of Moldovan and foreign experts provided concrete figures and evidence to prove the inconsistency of Igor Dodon’s arguments.
In conclusion, Anatol Taranu noted that the attempt to reduce the importance or denigrate the Association Agreement is noxious for Moldova’s European perspectives.
Alina Marin, IPN
The article on the same issue published in July 2014 is available here
