Even if these are modest, there are chances that the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine will obtain the accession candidate country status. However, Georgia will be treated separately in this process, the president of the Party of Change Ștefan Gligor stated in a public debate staged by IPN.
“If we speak about bureaucracy, procedures, rules applied in the case of other states when these applied for the candidate country status, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia lag behind. From economic viewpoint, Georgia looks the best probably, following the package of reforms implemented by Mikhail Saakashvili. Ukraine comes second as an economic power and as processes, while the Republic of Moldova is a rival of Ukraine in terms of efficiency, the public administration method, but Ukraine’s resources and population are incomparable with those of the Republic of Moldova. When we speak about Ukraine, we speak about 40 million people, while in the case of the Republic of Moldova – about 2.7 million people,” stated Ștefan Gligor.
The leader of the Party of Change noted that as regards the financial tasks, it would be illogical for the EU to grant the candidate country status to Ukraine, which suffers because of the military aggression of Russia, and to refuse to grant this status to Moldova. “The Republic of Moldova is petty against Ukraine by the subsequent volume of investments and processes. Georgia could be treated separately as it is geographically situated elsewhere. There is that political regime that is doubted in terms of functional democracy, observance of human rights and persecution of Mikhail Saakashvili, who has been a symbol of reform in Georgia and of the European integration. There could be particular reservations towards Georgia in this regard,” said Ștefan Gligor, noting all the three states suffer from Russia’s military aggression against them.
He also said that both Ukraine and Moldova have important advocates who are already fully-fledged members of the EU. “I hope a lot that these advocates, like Poland is for Ukraine and Romania is for the Republic of Moldova, will support us in this approach and this attempt to obtain the candidate country status. I want to remind that the energy synchronization with the European Union was planned to take place a year later. I’m not sure that in a year the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine would have honored their obligations as regards the synchronization of their energy systems. However, as an exception, realizing the necessity of hastening the processes following the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, this happened overnight. The system is balanced and the Republic of Moldova, together with Ukraine, does its best to fulfill the assumed obligations regarding the synchronization of the energy systems,” stated Ștefan Gligor.
He noted that Moldova is an EU associated country, but it has taken small steps in this regard, while the funds it gets from the EU are modest. Moldova was unable to do the reform in the economic sector, including the fiscal reform, which was done by Georgia that assumed an open conflict with the IMF. The obtaining of the candidate country status can stimulate Moldova to ensure economic development and the fight against corruption and to improve the efficiency of the process of managing internal affairs.
The public debate entitled “Summit of the European Council of June 23-24, 2022: “To be” or ...”to be” for Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova? What can decision be based on?” was the 253rd installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
