The Romanian officials are determined to resort to the European conditionality in order to dose, and if necessary restrict, their own financial resources pumped to Moldova, writes political researcher Dionis Cenuşa in an analytical article for the IPN Agency.
At least declaratively, the Government of Ludovic Orban underlines both the assessment of the democratic institutions in Moldova and the degree of proximity to the EU, when it comes to the future of financial assistance, the political researcher points out.
In his opinion, Romania opts for maximum strictness in operating Romanian, but also the European financial support.
The political researcher refers to the first meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, since the entry into office of the new European Commission, during which the Romanian diplomats have highlighted 4 principles on which the approach to Moldova should be based.
The first principle, writes a political researcher, is the "careful and strict monitoring" of the degree of fulfillment of the commitments towards the EU, but above all of the Association Agreement.
The conditioning of financial assistance, together with that of the political support, depending on the progress of the reforms - based on clear evidences and not statements - is the second principle listed by Dionis Cenuşa.
The reorientation of the assistance to the projects within Moldova, but destined to European values and interconnection with the EU, forms the third pillar of the strict conditionality mechanism, deduced by the political researcher.
According to his observations, the fourth principle lies in maintaining unity and uniformity in EU’s approaches to Moldova, which is totally contrary to the gestures of the previous Romanian governments.
He believes that none of these principles was really emphasized during the government of Maia Sandu, but they entered the diplomatic-political circulation of the Moldova-Romania relations after its fall. He also argues that these principles involve political pre-conditions and the reorientation of money from central authorities to other categories of beneficiaries.
The political scientist argues that the governments in Chisinau should no longer rely on non-conditionality from Romania, which seems to exhaustively embrace the conditionality mechanism, activated by the EU in 2018 against the oligarchic regime.
Thus, that can increase the effectiveness of the pressure exerted by the European institutions. Consequently, the opposition and the civil society in Moldova can become again the major partners in monitoring the reforms on the European agenda, concludes the political researcher.
