Moldova will have to choose in two-three years' time if the European Union will not accept an ambitious integration agenda for Moldova, with the Eastern Partnership is only an inefficient bureaucratic instrument, Moldavian Economy minister Valeriu Lazar believes. Interviewed by HotNews.ro, he claims that Moldova has an alternative: becoming part of a regional organisation based on a CIS arrangement, with Russia as engine. Moldova's latest current challenge is to convince the European partners taking part in the Conference of the Donors for the Republic of Moldova in Brussels that the Moldavian government is determined to push reforms through. But the major risk is a reform slowdown should early elections interfere.
Surprisingly, Russia's position is very structured right now. (...) The Russian Federation's offer is clear: Russia consider CIS a regional organisation based on common economic interests. (...) The republic of Moldova needs to decide where is heading, sooner or later.
Up to a certain integration level, there is no conflict between our integration on the Western or Eastern axis. (...) We have all the political desire for the European integration, but, in the end, we are not naive either; we understand fully what happens in the EU and we don't believe we can talk now about EU accession, in the political-administrative sense. This is very clear to me. (...)For the moment, the political-administrative EU accession is not our target and the EU is not ready either, at least this is what we make from the signals coming from Brussels. We need to be ambitious and make inner reforms, to adopt European standards and to carry on with the same passion and speed.
On the other hand, there is a huge question mark. The Eastern Partnership works at a discussion level. In practice, judging from the discussion I have with people I know fro
