EDITORIAL / When will Moldova enter Europe (once)? – Guard newspaper
Do I still remember when I was standing in line for visas for EU countries? You had to have an official invitation, pay a sum in euros, wait in line, wait and get a visa for just a few days. What a joy it was to receive it, at all costs and time. The joy lasted for a few days, then we took care of the next worries, maybe even the worries of gaining a new vision.
If we don’t need visas anymore, we get rid of a lot of problems: we don’t spend time anymore, we don’t wait in line, we don’t collect documents anymore, we don’t humiliate when we get invitations, we don’t spend money on visas, we don’t even we are lied to by piles of intermediaries and tourism companies, who made money from the needs of people to travel.
The liberalized visa regime will enter into force in April 2014. For 6 years now, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova have been traveling freely anywhere in the European Union, without restrictions. But we don’t particularly enjoy it anymore. Quite simply, it is a mandatory right and we are already finding other concerns to be annoyed about.
I personally remember how the first Moldovan goods arrived in Europe. After many years, in which I thought that the European market is too far away, too high, too regulated for the products of our peasants, wines, fruits have made their place, little by little, on the shelves of shops in Paris, Rome or Berlin. Now no one doubts that Moldovan goods can reach the European market. But we don’t clap our hands when we see plums, nuts or wines on the shelves. Maybe we even want better prices or greener packaging, or promote more appropriate. We must find some problems.
I remember when it was a great difficulty for Moldovan students to get to universities in the European Union: documents, visas, forms, queues, arguments. Now any young Moldovan can go to any European university, if they study. And, in fact, European universities are full of young people from Moldova. The European institutions also have Moldovan employees. Although we do not applaud this aspect, because it is not a problem. We are interested in when the problems will be solved, and there are many.
What about prices and inflation? That in the European Union, prices are still rising, but governments are helping, especially the disadvantaged. And what about corruption? It’s been a year since we had a new government, but the cart with the big corrupt has not rushed at all. And what about the energy crisis? Only tomorrow is not the day after tomorrow and now it’s November, why don’t we heat up and at what price? And what about security, what about the Army? It’s been over 3 months of war, Russia hasn’t withdrawn from Ukraine like that, and we’re dealing with the Russian army, the Cobasna depot, the challenges?
And, in general, when we join the European Union once, how long should we wait? The questionnaires were submitted in April. What’s next? The impatience is more and more pressing, the Republic of Moldova seems to be getting better and better, but the crises are getting deeper and deeper.
This month, June 2022, some answers to these questions will come from Brussels. The answers may be more optimistic or desolate, although in both cases the answer we have to wait for is not about the year, day and time we will access the European Union. Which shouldn’t be of much interest to this process and the work plan. It is crucial to work to bring European standards to Moldova, those of justice, transparency, human rights, public services. If we have them, the date and time of accession will not matter so much.
The hard part is coming. We cannot stop the planet, with all its processes, for Moldova to make reforms. These very difficult judicial reforms in the anti-corruption system must be made right now, when we have a war in the neighborhood, an impossible energy crisis, extreme inflation, impoverishment and chronic fatigue.
At the moment, enemies and skeptics are everywhere: a cohort of corrupt people who do not want to leave the system, a cohort of corrupt people who have left it but do not want justice and pay whatever they want to drag the trials, a cohort of political opponents of democratization. they are joined by impoverished people, affected by the precarious economic situation, people stressed by the war, people who have left, people who want to leave, the unemployed, the sick, the skeptics. People are waiting to live better. From today.
A lot of hard work follows, some successes necessarily mixed with sacrifices. Only those who believe in the European future will give up and give up comfort. One day, in a few years, the Republic of Moldova will become an integral part of the European Union. We will enjoy a few days, and then we will certainly identify new issues that need to be addressed.
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