HISTORY OF MOLDOVA –EU RELATIONS

Upon collapse of the USSR,  the European Union started reconsidering its policy towards the former republics of the USSR. In 1992, a regional approach was developed: the European Council decided to begin negotiations concerning the Partnership and Co-operation Agreements (PCA) with new independent states, former USSR republics and Mongolia.

To mention is that such negotiations began with many member-states of the CIS, except with Moldova. On the 1st of November 1993 and, repeatedly, on the 28-th of January 1994, Moldovan President Mircea Snegur addressed letters to the Presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission to express regret that Moldova was the only country in the Eastern and Central Europe which did not have definite relations with the European Union.

The PCA was negotiated and signed after a quite short period of time – on the 28-th of November 1994, 10 months after the last letter of President Mircea Snegur had been sent.

The PCA entered into force four years later in 1998, following the same strict order: Russia, Ukraine, Moldova.

Moldova was the first CIS member-state to join the Council of Europe - on the 13-th of July 1995.

Before the PCA entered into force, Moldavian authorities realized that the agreement meant co-operation, not integration into the European Union and attempted to persuade the UE leadership to open a new stage in its relationship with the Republic of Moldova. On the 13-th of December 1996, President Petru Lucinschi, in his letter to Mr. Jacques Santer, President of the European Commission, expressed for the first time the aspiration of the Republic of Moldova to become by the year 2000 an associate member of the European Union.

This event preceded immediately a new policy of the European Union: in summer of the year 1999, the European Union on its own initiative, opened for a group of Balkan states the perspective of integration.

Meanwhile, on the 1st of July 1998, the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement entered into force setting up the legal basis for a closer collaboration between the European Union and the Republic of Moldova as well as for the implementation of TACIS Assistance Programme.

8 months later, despite the reticent position of the EU, the new Moldavian government of Ion Sturza declared European integration the prior strategic objective of its foreign policy.

Moldova is the only country in the CIS to be a member of the South-East Europe Co-operation Initiative and the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.Moldova is an observer in the South-East European Co-operation Process.

The Republic of Moldova is also the only country of the CIS included in the European Neighbourhood Policy, which is a member of the World Trade Organization (since May 2001).

So, in its relationship with the EU, Moldova has advanced further than other CIS member-states, neighbours of the EU.

After the European Neighbourhood Policy was launched in 2003,  two extremely important events happened in 2004: on the 2nd of April 2004, seven new states, including Romania, joined NATO and the western border of our country became a border with NATO. On the 1st of May 2004, as a result of the accession of ten new states to the European Union, Moldova got closer to the EU. In the same period, Moldova, the first western member-state of the CIS, started negotiations on the Action Plan but, given the regional approach (in spite of opposite declarations made by Brussels), that document was signed on the 22nd of February 2005 in Brussels.

 So, Moldova has today several fields of co-operation with the European Union, being unique from this viewpoint: co-operation with EU within the neighbourhood policy, which includes co-operation in the frame of the PCA as well, and, indirectly, co-operation within the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe and within the South-East European Cooperation Process.

Source: www.ipp.md