Expert says Moldovan authorities not set to join European Union in next five years

Chisinau, 11 November /MOLDPRES/ - An associate expert of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, Mihai Mogaldea, in an interview given exclusively to MOLDPRES, has said that the Moldovan authorities were not set to join the European Union in the near future.   

"The government of Moldova does not intend to join the European Union in the next five years. The Moldovan authorities have other strategy and it consists in the adjusting of the domestic policies to the European Union’s ones,” Mogaldea stressed.  

The authorities’ reticence to submit an application on joining the European Union would be due to the fact that, in the next 10-15 years, the European Union will not give the Eastern Partnership member states a prospect of acceding to the EU. “Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia have not managed to change the European Union’s perception on extension in this region. Certainly, the pressure these states are making in Brussels do not harm; yet, a clear-cut prospect of accession can take place only in a friendly climate regionally and when there is domestic unity on the topic of accession, a time interval of 10-15 years,” the expert said.       

The Eastern Partnership was launched in 2009 and its main goal is to deepen and strengthen the relations between the European Union and its neighbours: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, members of the Eastern Partnership, make pressures for this good-neighbour instrument, created by EU, to turn into an instrument of accession.