Filat: Good Intentions Alone Are Not Enough for EU Accession

The report on the work of the European Commission presented to the media showed the fact that Moldova is on the last place in implementing EU policies requested as a condition for granting the candidate country status for accession. According to ex-premier Vlad Filat, never since 2009 has Moldova lagged behind Ukraine and Georgia in implementing EU policies. The latter does not even have the status of a candidate country. “We were the first Eastern Partnership country to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, the first country to get rid of visas, and we were a “success story”, even though some speculated and tried to devalue this formula. This happened just because we met the EU requirements, otherwise we would have received neither the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement nor visa-free access to the EU. Even if some members of the government, like everyone before them, try to blame the previous cabinets, only the current authorities are responsible. Those nine conditions, of which only three were met, were handed over not to the previous governments but to the current one. Moldova’s last place after Ukraine and Georgia is due to internal politics. Even with full openness from external partners, even if the doors of Euro-Atlantic chancelleries are open to the current government, without aligning domestic policies with other non-PAS structures of society, we will still remain on the margins. There can be no successful foreign policy without a sound domestic policy. And the status of a candidate country, when you look at where we are now, proves once again that the war in Ukraine and Romania’s efforts put us on the road to accession. Good intentions alone are not enough to join the EU, and external partners cannot do all the work for us,” Filat wrote. As a reminder, Moldova shows worse results than Ukraine and Georgia in applying the European legislation. This is stated in the draft report of the European Commission that assesses the degree of implementation of the European legislation for each Associated Trio country.