The opening of accession negotiations with the European Union should take place in the first half of 2024 and there are many arguments in this regard. Together with the launch of negotiations, a number of processes at domestic level will be accelerated. The issue was discussed by experts invited to an #EUDebatesCafe in a videoconference format entitled “What will happen after European Council’s meeting of December?”, IPN reports.
MEP Siegfried Mureșan explained how important is for the negotiations to be opened in the first half of 2024. “Afterward, a campaign prior to the European Parliament elections will be launched in the European Union and the institutional reconfiguration process will follow – election of a new European Commission, which is of a new executive of the European Union. While the European Union at political level will be preoccupied with this reconfiguration, our experts at technical level, on both of the sides, can make progress. So, by taking this decision, all the preconditions were created for 2024 to be a won year, a wining year during which the negotiation process will start and significant progress will be made,” stated the MEP.
Secretary of state of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Vladimir Cuc said the opening of negotiations will have to be supported by a series of prompt and assumed measures so that the process advances swiftly. In this regard, a national action plan is needed. “This implies a number of processes at national level. Legislation screening is an indispensable element in the nearest future. It is an essential stage in any negotiations as it is extremely detailed scanning of the legal framework. This screening is an indispensable step. It will be taken in parallel with the implementation of the three elements of the nine recommendations,” stated Vlad Cuc, noting the three elements are: preparation of the enlargement package, updating of the National Action Plan, and constitution of the team of negotiators.
Dorina Baltag, EU foreign policy and diplomacy researcher, said the communication with the citizens is a key ingredient and this is the quintessence of the integration process, which should not be neglected. “We must bear in mind that the European integration process covers everyone, the academia, the organized civil society or the NGOs, the business community, the media. The opening of negotiations is only a drop in a large ocean of reforms that follow, judging by the steps taken by the states that recently joined the European Union,” opined Dorina Baltag.
In the course of 2023, the IPRE/CBS-AXA polls showed that the support for Moldova’s entry into the EU increased notably, by about 4.2%. This way, the support for this desideratum grew from 51.2% to 55.4% against the reduction in the number of the undecided respondents from 12.70% to 8.9% and the decline in the number of those who oppose the accession to the EU from 31.3% to 30.3%.
The debate was staged in the framework of the project “EU DEBATES CAFÉ: Advancing knowledge and expertise on EU institutions and policies in the Republic of Moldova”, which is implemented by the Institute for European Policies and Reforms (IPRE) in cooperation with the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Moldova and with financial support from the German Federal Foreign Office.
