Moldova is one of the countries in line to enter the European Union. For more than 12 months, it has been ready to open official negotiations for reforms.
But it had to wait patiently because its fate was chained to Ukraine, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán blocked the path forward for Kyiv. Now, with that political blockade cleared, optimism in Chișinău is soaring amid expectations that June will finally see the country’s EU integration move forward.
While many have described this process as frustrating for Moldova, Cristina Gherasimov, the country’s deputy prime minister for European integration, explains why it was “worth” waiting.
Without Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU would still be trapped in its rigid “enlargement fatigue mode,” Gherasimov told a small group of journalists, among them EUobserver, during a visit to Brussels earlier in May.
But now there is a new security and geopolitical dimension to enlargement.
