(New Europe) In the schoolmaster culture of European Neighborhood policy in Brussels, a few things can be missed from evaluation report to evaluation report.
This time, a lot has been missed. East Partnership states are handed “reform assignments” to deliver by a specified date. Apparently, according to the European Commission, 2014 was a good year in terms of normative approximation and reform for Moldova. For all purposes, the East Partnership Riga summit was a day when grades of approximation where handed out. Moldova was the star pupil. Europe had sighed in relief with the election of a pro-European government and reforms were taking place in the most efficient manner. We thought. Last year.
The star pupil of the Riga Summit was Moldova. Chisinau got what it wanted, namely a Visa Liberalization process, even before showing up. Georgia and Ukraine got a “see you in November” note. It is understandable that in recent months the still-unresolved crisis in Ukraine commanded the attention of most western observers. Perhaps that’s one reason we failed to notice what was going on in Moldova besides “meeting benchmarked expectations.”
In a nutshell, there is a political crisis linked to corruption. […]
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