In July 2014, IPN News Agency carried out an awareness raising campaign entitled “Myths and truths about the Association Agreement”, which tackled the main fears related to the process of signing and ratifying this accord. In almost three years, we decided to return to the same sources and the same subjects in order to see how things changed in evolution and if the expectations that existed before the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU were met.
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“Only businesses will benefit from the DCFTA, not the Moldovan people”
The necessity of profound reforms in Moldova appeared long ago, the poverty level that does not decline and that affects the largest part of the country’s population being an indicator of this. The necessity of profound reforms may be not yet noticed by the whole society, but is understood by the elites, said economic expert Tatiana Lariushin, programs director at the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul”. According to her, as a result of this demand for reforms, the European Union came up with a plan that clearly shows what should be done and what results will be obtained as well as what assistance the country will receive from the EU. But radical changes do not occur and do not bring about immediate results.
“Every time you do extensive repair works in the house, you feel a discomfort for a particular period of time. All the members of the family feel this discomfort too. The budget of the family is also affected. It is the same in the case of the country. As we understood that we do not want to live in such poverty, we must make effort to change the situation. But patience is yet needed,” stated Tatiana Lariushin.
She also said that the new commercial conditions imposed by the EU were perceived as a shock by the business sector. Gradually, the businesses started to develop, being guided inclusively by competition on the home market, where the domestic products have felt safe so far, but have now to compete with similar products from other states, which can be cheaper and of a higher quality. As a result, the population got access to a much wider range of products, at reasonable prices. The free movement of Moldovans to the EU member states enables unhampered travel to other countries as well, from where they purchase cheaper drugs, equipment, clothes and other things to which they earlier didn’t have access.
Tatiana Lariushin noted that owing to the failure in doing reforms, the authorities cannot ensure all the benefits of the ongoing transformation processes, both for the population and for businesses. Thus, the conclusion after over two years of the signing of the Association Agreement is that the national legislation was harmonized with the European one, but it is the mechanism for implementing it that is the ‘Achilles' heel’.
“We need another composition of the Government, which would focus not on the ensuring of a not exactly appropriate formula of the ruling parties, with all its components, but on the demand of society, which wants a better life with reduced poverty and increased welfare,” stated the expert, adding that when the national producers are sufficiently competitive to cope with the requirements on the EU market, they will definitely be competitive on the Russian market and the CIS market as well.
Alina Marin, IPN
The article on the same issue published in July 2014 is available here