Familiarizing people with advantages of EU integration will considerably reduce restricting capacity of ruling elites: MEP

Familiarizing the people with the advantages of the EU integration will considerably reduce the restricting capacity of the ruling elites over opposition political parties and the civil society. This is the opinion of Romanian member of European Parliament (MEP) Alin Antochi, a member of the European Parliament's Delegation for relations with Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports. In statement on the verge of the Szymański report on revising the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument, submitted on February 19, he "fully supports the provisions of the report on deepening the EU's level of political commitment with the states envisaged by the Neighborhood Instrument and the perspective of concluding association accords taking into account the peculiarity of each country.” “To efficiently implement this policy, the envisaged states should fully commit to the process of democratically reforming society. Efficiently implementing the reforms – especially the ones related to democracy, state of law, freedom of speech – remains a serious problem for these states and depends both on the political will of their authorities, and on the degree of the commitment on the part of the civil society and citizens," reads a statement by the MEP. Alin Antochi believes that "it's important that the population of these states realizes that the European integration offers more than the possibility of legally going abroad, it represents a real opportunity to get the country out of the deadlock. In this respect, the European projects should have more concrete clauses and special funds to education people."