​MOLDOVA’S EURO-INTEGRATION POLICY HAS NO ALTERNATIVE – FOREIGN MINISTER NATALIA GHERMAN

The Republic of Moldova seeks and works to become a full-fledged member of the European family of nations, and a full implementation of the Association Agreement with the European Union is a short and effective instrument to achieve this goal, maintains the Moldovan Deputy Premier, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Natalia Gherman.

Speaking at the 2nd annual forum on European integration issues on Tuesday, Gherman said that since the 1st forum, held last December, Moldova has covered a long way, which contained serious challenges, too.

“We have achieved visa regime liberalization, have signed and ratified the Association Agreement. I am firmly convinced that our European integration path has no alternative. I know that some politicians and a part of the society disagree with this. So, we will have to prove all the advantages of the European integration, which will eventually bring us to stability, prosperity and country reintegration”, said the foreign minister.

Democratic Party leader MP Marian Lupu said that European integration has lately become an important issue for the political elite, but not for the whole society.

“Unfortunately, we have underestimated the need for holding a continuous dialog with the society. We failed to explain the pluses and minuses of this process, or to take stock of all risks and challenges, which we need to withstand. Now we must eliminate all these shortcomings to make the process really irreversible. We need to be doing this job constantly, including in the course of the beginning election campaign, so as to prevent a drastic change of everything at the November 30 elections. We must make this forum take place next year, too, and it must be attended by the would-be country leadership”, stressed Marian Lupu.

Ambassador Pirkka Tapiola, Head of the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Moldova, said that the Moldova leadership has a great work to do yet.

“We assess positively what has been done in Moldova, including indeed against the background of other member countries of the Eastern Partnership Program. But we see also what has not been done yet. Moldova has not adopted the Law on the Prosecution. The judiciary reform is not giving expected results. Struggle against corruption leaves much to be desired. That’s why the European Union has reduced the next tranche for realization of the judiciary reform. We will be closely following the progress of reforms, and will be rooting out corruption by joint effort”, said Pirkka Tapiola.

Infotag’s dossier: The Forum was organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and by the Association for External Policy (APE) of the Republic of Moldova. It is being attended by politicians, diplomats, foreign guests etc.