Moldova could obtain necessary capacities for adhering to EU within 10-15 years

The realities from Moldova show that the country could obtain the necessary capacities to adhere to the European Union in 10-15 years, the MP of the UK Parliament, Bruce George declared at a conference on Thursday, October 5. The conference “Increasing advocacy capacities of NGOs” was organized by the International Association “Business and Parliament – Moldova” (IABP-Moldova). According to the official, things could evolve faster only if Moldova will decide to head towards the EU, because during the process of adhering many benefits and advantages can be obtained. “Moldova is only at the beginning of the process and at the moment it is necessary to make decisions and strategies. Moldova must decide what to way to choose: to integrate as a part of Russia, and to ally with Belarus and Kazakhstan or to follow the way of Romania and Bulgaria, which after a complicated process of decisions managed to obtain European integration”, George said. Moldova is significantly helped by international organizations, EU, UN, the World Bank, and international NGOs but now it depends on the Moldovan population and authorities whether to turn to good account this support. Referring to the works of the seminar, Bruce George said that this cooperation between the Parliament and business community is only “at the beginning”. “Both parties have just started to learn how to collaborate, although they depend on each other”, George said. He mentioned, that, however good the attitude of authorities would be, they do not know the whole situation and that is why the representatives of the business field must provide authorities with recommendations on the basis of their experience and professionalism. “More collaboration with authorities means better governing, because the role of NGO is to participate in the governing process”, the official added. Advocacy capacity is the capacity to protect the interests of the field and to promote the development necessities of the enterprises an association represents through transparent and efficient dialogue with the Government and Parliament, the director of IABP-Moldova, Romeo Turacanu mentioned. The organization collaborates with the project Concurrence Evolving and Enterprise Development (CEED) financed by USAID, which includes activities for improving advocacy capacities of national economy’s fields. According to Turcanu, encouraging advocacy capacities was discussed at the seminar, especially elaboration of some strategies that would allow associations which represent the fields of the national economy to promote their interests while dialoguing with authorities, fact which will bring advantages both to the field and the state. IABP-Moldova is a subsidiary of the UK-based IABP NGO.