What Prospects for Moldova’s Rapprochement with the EU?
What Prospects for Moldova’s Rapprochement with the EU?

Author(s): Octavian Rusu
Subject(s): International relations/trade, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: IDIS VIITORUL Institutul pentru Dezoltare şi Initiative Sociale
Keywords: Transnistria; Moldova EU-accession;
Summary/Abstract: In the last few months an emerging pessimistic mood could be observed within Moldovan expert community concerning Moldova’s “success story” and its potential for rapprochement with the EU. Many experts now raise serious warnings over Moldova’s European perspectives focusing on the genuinely internal challenges (reforms) in the context of some external issues as the “Arab spring”. The first part of this paper assesses these assumptions underlining instead a series of arguments in support of the idea that Moldova will stand high on the EU radar screen. The argument is that external factors (others than the “Arab spring”) are more important than internal ones for Moldova’s European prospects. Thus, the second part will look at two perspectives that are only occasionally treated within the EaP expert community, as the question of the European project’s future and most importantly, the uni-multipolarisation within the EU. This second perspective has concrete implications for Moldova in the context of its efforts to reintegrate the Transnistrian separatist region.

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