Moldova has lower chances to gain EU membership than Poland had – Polish expert

In political terms, Moldova is in a worse situation than Poland was at the beginning of its way towards the EU membership, former deputy chief accession negotiator of Poland Andrzej Ananicz told a roundtable on Monday, February 26. According to the cited source, after 1989 there were no longer reasons to criticise Poland over the freedom of press, or the policy on judicial system, while Moldova is criticized by the European Commission regarding these issues, he stated. On the other hand, from the economic point of view Moldova is in a better situation than Poland was at the beginning of its way to EU. At present, the living standard in Moldova is higher, but Poland rapidly implemented reforms, and that is why its European prospect looked better than Moldova’s, Ananicz said. Reffering to Chisinau’s tendencies to obtain a visa regime identical with that granted to Romania and Bulgaria in the pre-accession period, the Polish expert stated that he doubts this tactics and does not know if it is an appropriate one. If Chisinau will continue to keep this stance, it will face a long wait to receive a response and it is unknown if it will be a positive one, he concluded. Ambassador Ananicz’s visit is part of the project “Moldova-EU: the taking over of the new member sates’ experience of European integration”, conducted by the Foreign Policy Association with the support of the European Initiative Programme of Soros-Moldova Foundation that envisages the organisation of a series of visits to Chisinau of the former EU chief negotiators from the new member states with a view to facilitating the agreement and Moldova’s taking over of the experience gained by the new state members in the European integration process.