Plans for reforming CIS could mean legalization of its discussion club statute. IPN interview

Info-Prim Neo Interview with Andrei Popov, executive director of Foreign Affairs Association [- A draft on reforming CIS was presented in Moscow. Do you think it is possible to reform this organization so that it would become viable and functional?] The proposals on reforming CIS presented by the president of Kazakhstan before the Summit meant honestly recognizing its existent problems – only 10% of the agreements signed within the the Commonwealth are working. As a consequence, the reform of the organization aims at reducing the collaboration areas to few issues – migration, transport, education, humanitarian problems and fighting cross-border criminality. I understood that one more area was proposed – coordinating standpoints on international issues, but it was not accepted and for sure can not be accepted by Moldova. Nazarbaev’s proposals include that all decisions will be adopted through a consensus of opinions and will be compulsory. However as long as the member states are the ones to decide upon adopting or not a proposal, there is no risk that a group of countries could impose to compulsory execute a decision which comes against the interests of the state, for example Moldova’s. Linked to the proposal of reducing, not increasing, the budget and the personnel of the CIS and transferring some competences of the organization to national coordinators from countries’ capitals, the reformation draft could legalize the real situation of this organization – a discussion club, a consultation platform for its member, the compulsory decision being made on a limited number of areas, more or less technical. And if this is the reformation way of the CIS, I think it could become a more functional structure. It looks like Russia is not paying to the commonwealth the importance it did and namely the one of mechanism promoting integration around it and according to its rules. These objectives are promoted, more and more insistently through the Organization of Collective Security and Unique Economic Space. At the same time, some declarations made (maybe ineptly?!) by several participants at the Summit regarding the opportunity of creating within the CIS a retort to the model of European Integration and strengthening political cooperation creates the impression that not all the leaders of the CIS understand fully the limits of this organization and their own expectation. However it is clear that those who want to integrate with Russia have other structures for this objective and trying to attract in the integrationist process such different countries as Moldova and Armenia, Georgia and Belarus, Ukraine and Uzbekistan is in the most optimistic case a waste of time. [ - What perspectives does Moldova have in CIS and what are the risks or benefits if Moldova abandons this organization] The thesis that the statute of a CIS member country is incompatible with the statute of candidate, and even more with one of EU member is already well-known. And it is true: the institutions, European standards and the acquis communitaire are irreconcilably clashing with the engagements taken in front of the CIS. It is a pity, but in its relationships with EU, Moldova is still far from the moment when it will have to choose and when its presence in the CIS will be an impediment for the European integration. At present Moldova’s withdrawal from CIS will not bring tangible benefits, instead will entail certain costs. EU will not compensate them, and I am not sure whether we can afford them or not. No one from the European Union asks us to make this option. From the viewpoint of EU, not through withdrawing from the CIS we can prove our European vocation and uncouple from the post-soviet space, but through giving a European touch to all reforms and institutions, absolutely different from all the former soviet republics. As long as CIS will not set as an objective transforming itself into an expended version of the EuroAsiatic Economic Community or of the Unique Economic Space, with all supranational structures, maintaining the statute of CIS member will not imperil our European option and it could allow us solving some problems in the areas regulated by functional agreements – education, migration, transport etc. [- Taking into consideration that at the summit no agreement was signed and no bilateral meeting with president Putin took place, do you think that the participation of the president of Moldova was justified?] The format of this informal Summit was not including a settled agenda, neither documents needing to be signed, or bilateral meetings with the president Putin. A possible miss from the Summit would have offered a good pretext for those who are searching pretexts to blame Moldova for the bad relationships with Russia. It would have been a “gift” for the propagandists from Moscow and also for the Russian diplomats who promote in the West the idea that the problems occurring in the Moldovan-Russian relationships are generated by the “maximalism”, “immaturity” and “stubbornness” of Chisinau. “Moldova talks about the fact that president Putin and the public opinion of Russia are misinformed about the state of affairs in Moldova, but it is not using its chance of making public its viewpoint in front of intermediaries”, they would have said. The informal contacts of Vladimir Voronin with the president of Russia, cannot solve our problems, but a demonstrative absence could only strengthen the intransigent standpoint of Russia regarding Moldova. Besides, the one-hour interview at the “Eho Moskvy” radio station offered a rare chance to communicate with the Russian public and to refute the clichés and the wrong impression about Moldova, so insistently spread by the Russian media.