Moldova's successful European integration depends on how parliamentary parties support this aspiration, U.S. expert

The successful European integration of Moldova depends also on how all the parliamentary parties support this aspiration. Currently, almost half of Moldova's people have mental reserves as regards their status of Europeans. Such an opinion was stated by Bruce Jackson, an active U.S. militant for democracy in the area of the former Soviet Union, Info-Prim Neo reports. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, the expert said he spoke with the Communist Party head Vladimir Voronin and with Mark Tkachuk, who expressed doubts about their wish to become part of Europe, with its economic system and values, with powerful NGOs and the press, where you can get fired easily by civil society and the voters. Bruce Jackson believes the Communist Party is not yet at ease with such a type of active democracies. Another problem mentioned by the expert is the ruling alliance's inability to fully assert itself. “It was short of two votes for too long. It will be practically the third attempt to firmly head for Europe and this is a problem,” said Bruce Jackson. He stated that Moldova has a young and attractive administration and this is an advantage. “People like Leanca and Filat are attractive also owing to the power given by youth,” he said. Bruce Jackson considers that Moldova's size is a plus in the European integration process as a small country advances two or three times faster than large countries like Poland or Romania. The latter needed nine years to be accepted into the EU. The U.S. analyst also said that the European Union feels guilty about the way in which it treated Moldova. “This country's poverty should be embarrassing for the entire Europe. At a certain moment, it was even poorer than Haiti. It wasn't offered the same possibilities as the Baltic and the Balkan states even if there was no moral reason for such a discrepancy,” he stated. Bruce Jackson, head of the Washington-based Project on Transitional Democracies, is an active critic of Russia's policy in its immediate neighborhood and a founder of the U.S. Committee on NATO.