The European Neighborhood Policy, which is the EU’s foreign policy instrument intended for a group of 16 neighboring states that was launched in 2004, is to be reviewed this year owing to the crisis in Ukraine and the necessity of adopting a more flexible approach towards the EU’s neighbors. It’s certain that the European Union does not plan to extend this year and it’s not known if Moldova will submit an application for accession to the EU. Such opinions were stated in a press club meeting of the Foreign Policy Association (APE) that was held at IPN.
APE executive director Victor Chirila said the developments in the region made the EU to launch a review of the Eastern Partnership that covers Moldova as well. He believes that the given project must be updated and therefore the APE commissioned an analysis to expert Corneliu Ciurea.
For his part, Corneliu Ciurea said that nobody knows how the Eastern Partnership will be reviewed exactly. The ignoring of the geopolitical factor is one of the possible problems. The crisis in Ukraine showed that the project has unanticipated consequences. The insufficient differentiation between the states included in the Eastern Partnership is another problem and it is evident that the EU now tends to establish bilateral relations rather than to apply a common policy. The lack of this common policy and the excessive bureaucratization of processes are among other problems.
The expert noted that until recently the authorities declared that an application for joining the EU will be filed in 2015. But now such statements are no longer made. The EU is not ready to extend its borders, while the submission of an application could be negotiated. At the same time, the EU can neither accept nor reject an application from Moldova and the authorities should make use of this situation and should provoke the EU to provide in exchange a list of criteria that must be met for the country to become eligible for accession.
Corneliu Ciurea also said that at the Riga Summit of this May, the authorities intend to obtain a statement by which the European Union would recognize the right of the EaP member states to associate and integrate politically with the EU. But such a statement may not be obtained. “These two intentions are crucial for 2015, but there is no certainty that they will be implemented successfully,” he stated.
The press club meeting was staged by the APE with the support of East Europe Foundation, with the resources provided by the Government of Sweden through the Swish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark/DANIDA.
