The deliberate distancing of Democrats from the European topic is confirmed by their electoral program, which excludes the mentioning of the European integration and uses predominantly generalist formulations, such as Europe, writes Dionis Cenusa in an analytical article for the IPN Agency.
He notes that the EU reference is at the end of the electoral program, where the electoral claims are only slightly touching the EU, which interpreted as a Western actor.
On the one hand, says Dionis Cenusa, the intention is to "strengthen the relations" with the EU as a Western partner. And, on the other hand, PDM promises to maintain "a categorical pro-Western option", which is equated with the "accelerated implementation of the Association Agreement" with the EU.
According to the analyst, such reluctance to European integration can have at least three explanations.
Firstly, in terms of electoral tactics, the Democrats have had to minimize pro-European rhetoric in order to keep away the allegations of their contribution to the deterioration of dialogue with the EU, explains Dionis Cenusa.
The second explanation provided by him refers to the priority of efficiently accumulating votes. Practically, both pro-Moldova and pro-EU public positioning have a similar attraction power of about 33-34% (IMAS, December 2018). In order to minimize association with the EU, which is useless as it is abundant in criticism, PDM has internalized the political discourse and emptied it from the geopolitical content, the analyst points out.
He argues that the third explanation relates to the goal of migrating to a neutral geo-political terrain has a connection with post-election calculus of Democrats.
Keeping the power is only likely if the PDM renounces any categorical positions on sensitive subjects, as deepening relations with the EU remains a sensitive topic. Therefore, Democrats artificially create a flexible environment for forging post-electoral coalitions, including with the representatives of political forces that share pro-Russian views.
In none of the cases, PDM intends to abandon the Association Agreement with the EU, but on the contrary insists principally on maintaining it in active phase, but promising only speed and no discipline and quality in its implementation, concludes the analyst.
