Political pundit Igor Boțan believes the visit by the President of France Emmanuel Macron to Chisinau set for June 15 can represent the “sweetening of the pill” before a negative decision on Moldova’s application for EU membership and the pill could be accepted in Chisinau, but Ukraine’s positions would be undermined this way, IPN reports.
In an interview for RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service, the expert said the European leaders are to take a decision whether to grant Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia the accession candidate country status or not in the June 23-24 meeting of the European Council, after the European Commission on June 17 will presents its opinion on the three countries’ applications for EU membership.
“I consider the European Commission’s decision will be rather positive. As regards the European Council, we know that there are countries that are very skeptical,” stated Igor Boțan, the director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT.
Ukraine filed the application shortly after it was invaded by the Russian troops and Moldova and Georgia followed its example. During three months, the three governments had prepared responses to hundreds of questions received from the European Commission, which can help decide if the three counties are ready to get the candidate country status or not.
But President Emmanuel Macron, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, said that “several decades” will be necessary for Ukraine to get ready for accession so that he proposed a “political community” of the EU countries with Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. The proposal was yet rejected by Kyiv as an attempt to replace the accession.
For its part, the Republic of Moldova welcomed the proposal after President Maia Sandu was assured by Macron that this does not replace the classical path of accession to the EU, but is complementary.
“I’m afraid the goal of Macron’s visit to Chisinau is to insist on palliative measures and the Moldovan authorities could accept such a solution, but this would undermine Ukraine’s poisons,” stated the ADEPT expert.
