The Republic of Moldova is awaiting the European Commission’s questionnaire on the application for membership
Moldovan Ambassador to Brussels Daniela Morari is encouraged by the first political steps of the European Union regarding the applications for membership submitted in early March by the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, but says in an interview with Free Europe that the bureaucratic process does not may be expedited.
“If we compare it with any country that has gone through this process, it takes months, if not years, from the application for membership to the submission of this application to the Council and then to a decision in the Council. In the case of the Republic of Moldova (Ukraine and Georgia) it lasted a week (…), it is an unprecedented speed “, says Morari.
Moldova signed the application for EU membership on March 3, following the example of Ukraine, which took the decision a few days after it was invaded by Russian troops on February 24.
On March 11, the leaders of the European Union (Council) decided at the informal summit in Versailles to ask the European Commission to present its opinion on the applications for accession of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. The three countries must receive a “political signal of belonging to the European family” from the EU, the leaders said, but they cannot be offered a quick accession procedure.
A long line of bureaucratic procedures begins with the preparation of a large questionnaire to the European Commission, containing concrete questions on how it plans to implement various policies or countries applying for membership.
Ambassador Daniela Morari says in an interview with Free Europe that the preparation of the questionnaire at the Commission has begun. “We don’t know how long it will take, but for sure it’s going to be a few months,” and the fact that “the questionnaire may contain a few thousand questions” will mean “a lot of work,” Morari said.
When the questionnaire is ready, it is sent to the country that applied for membership. Only when all the satisfactory answers have been received does the European Commission send to the EU Member States a so-called opinion or recommendation on each applicant’s application.
The European Council, then the member states, decides by unanimous vote of all 27 countries to grant and not to have the status of candidate. Finally, a framework for accession negotiations is developed and negotiations begin at some point.
It is a lengthy technical and bureaucratic procedure that cannot be avoided. “It will depend a lot on the capacity of each country to organize, to respond and the quality of the answers,” said Moldovan Ambassador to Brussels Daniela Morari in an interview with Free Europe.