Moldova has ambiguous position toward Eastern Partnership: analysts

Foreign policy specialists are concerned about the ambiguous official position of Moldova toward the initiative of the Eastern Partnership, endorsed by the Brussels European Council, reunited on March 19 and 20, Info-Prim Neo reports. “President Vladimir Voronin’s recent statements in an interview on February 27 have caused much astonishment in the European space,” Andrei Popov, the director of the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), stated at a news conference on Monday, March 23. “Without acclaiming the launch of this partnership, president Voronin has associated it with a type of CIS 2 and a chain of states against Russia, fundamentally angling the goal of this initiative and bringing serious injuries to the image and credibility of Moldova,” Popov said. According to the experts, there is a thing Chisinau is troubled about. It is the new multilateral dimension launched by the EU, the basis of which the evolution of the bilateral relations will develop. “The principle of differentiation is there in the Eastern Partnership, but it must be capitalized by each country. And the speed with which each country gets closer to the EU will depend on its political ambitions and the way people perceive the real reforms in the country,” Victor Chirila, a program director and a senior expert with the FPA in the Western space and the EU, said at the same conference. The Eastern Partnership will be launched on May 7 this year, at the summit of those 27 heads of states and governments with their counterparts from the countries envisaged by the Eastern Partnership, at which a common statement will be issued. “It is important for Moldova to be an active player and knew to promote its interests in a constructive and pragmatic way, despite the peculiarity and the fun caused by the electoral campaign. Otherwise, Moldova runs the risk to miss the opportunities it is offered,” Popov added. The experts highlighted that the Czech presidency is one of the locomotives of the EU's involvement in the Eastern space. Sweden that will immediately overtake the presidency is interested and open to the Eastern space. “The presidencies coming after these ones, the Belgian and Spanish, are less interested in this space. If we do not manage to structure the cooperation between Moldova as a part of the Eastern Partnership and the EU, we run the risk to fall into ambiguity,” the FPA director stated. The foreign policy experts have notice a negative trend ion strengthening the democratic institutions, as well as in genuinely making Moldova a Europeanized. They have specified that an important test will be the quality of the pre-electoral process and of the parliamentary elections of April 5, 2009.