Any European state that wants to sign an Association Agreement with the EU must firstly comply with the Copenhagen Criterion No.1 Political commentary by Victor Chirila

On July 21, 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid an official visit to Kiev, where she announced Germany’s intention to support France’s proposal that the EU should sign an Association Agreement with Ukraine. If all the EU member states back this proposal, the Agreement could be signed at the EU-Ukraine Summit set to take place in the French town of Evian on September 9, 2008. For the time being, it is not yet clear if the EU reached a consensus about this. However, Germany’s support for France’s proposal makes the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement more probable. The statements about Ukraine’s European prospects made by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and by the Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko seem to suggest that a consensus about the opportunity of signing an Association Agreement with Ukraine could be reached within the EU. Angela Merkel was very explicit, saying that the future Agreement with Ukraine will mean not only a consolidated partnership with the EU, but could also be regarded as an Association Agreement. Victor Yushchenko stressed that the discussions about the name of the future Agreement with the EU have produced significant results. As the Ukrainian authorities permanently insisted that the new Agreement with the EU should envision Ukraine’s entering into partnership with the EU, we can say that the results achieved by the Ukrainian negotiators brought Kiev rather closely to the achievement of its objective. Certainly, the September EU-Ukraine Summit could clarify the situation. If Kiev manages to negotiate an Association Agreement with the EU, this will be an important accomplishment not only for Ukraine, but for Moldova as well because it is rather probable that the EU would propose the same type of Agreement to the other Eastern European states that are its neighbors. This is possible, not yet definitive, because the chances of the EU’s neighbors from Eastern Europe to sign an Association Agreement with the EU depend on the way in which the commitments stipulated in the Action Plans agreed with the EU are fulfilled. As a matter of fact, we can presume that this correlation will be very much exploited by the EU members that are in favor of signing Association Agreements with the countries from Eastern Europe, especially given that the institutional reform of the EU in compliance with the Treaty of Lisbon is not a decided fact. That’s why, the Moldovan authorities’ ambition to sign an Association Agreement with the EU is not sufficient. Though the objective is good and deserves to be encouraged, it must also be formulated, argued, justified, promoted, explained and negotiated, supported by visible and constant progress in implementing democratic reforms without which we will not be able to comply with the Copenhagen Criteria. Besides, our officials should known that the same Copenhagen Criteria are applicable when negotiating and signing an Associations Agreement with the EU. The Moldovan authorities’ strategic objective is to negotiate an Association Agreement that would envision signing a wider Free Trade Agreement and the gradual liberalization of the visa regime between Moldova and the EU. For this objective to be not only listened to, but also heard by the EU officials so that they mandate the European Commission to initiate talks over a wider Partnership Agreement with Moldova, the Moldova authorities should make a concerted effort to implement democratic reforms in the European spirit in such areas as the electoral process, freedom of expression, pluralism and independence of mass media, free access to objective, diverse and impartial information, or improvement of interaction with the Opposition parties. All these fields arouse concerns in the EU. This sad reality was highlighted by the EU Ambassadors working in Chisinau together with the Delegation of the European Commission and the Special Representative of the European Union to Moldova in a July 17 statement titled “On the state of democracy and freedom of expression in Moldova”. In fact, this statement points out that Moldova does not fully satisfy one of the fundamental principles of the Copenhagen Criteria: stability of the institutions guaranteeing democracy. The experience of the EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe shows that any European state than wants to sign an Association Agreement with the EU must first of all comply with the Copenhagen Criterion No.1. The examples of Meciar’s Slovakia and Tudjman’s Croatia are relevant in this case. Do we need some other examples? Certainly NO.