Popescu: Moldova is the only country Southeast of EU, which is supported by Europe
The European Union is showing disappointment with most of its South-Eastern neighbors, and the only country the Union continues to back is the Republic of Moldova, presumes Nicu Popescu, the Head of the European Council on Foreign Relations' Program on Russia and Wider Europe, and the former Adviser to Moldovan Prime Minister Vladimir Filat on issues of foreign policy and European integration.
Posecu wrote in his personal blog this week that the Republic of Georgia is the 12th in the World Bank's Cost of Doing Business ranking (proxy indicator for reformism), and Ukraine is 147th.
But in the Economist Democracy Index, Georgia is 103rd when it comes to democracy, and Ukraine at the 67th place ["before Yanukovitch I assume] scored better than Montenegro.
"In the end, the EU is quite disappointed with both - Ukraine's democratic non-reformism, as well as with Georgia's semi-democratic reformism. The EU developed a 'Georgia fatigue' and a 'Ukraine fatigue', i.e. became disappointed and uninterested. The one country that so far managed to avoid such EU fatigue is Moldova. It even provokes visible levels of EU enthusiasm", wrote Nicu Popescu.
He presumes this is because Moldova managed to be as pluralist as Orange Ukraine, but also more reformist.
"International ratings capture this. Moldova is 90th place in the Costs of Doing Business, and 65th in the Democracy Index (on a par with Serbia). Less reformist, but more democratic than Georgia; more reformist and similarly democratic to Orange Ukraine. But maintaining this reputation and continuing to improve its 'reformist' credentials will still be very hard work", wrote Popescu.
In his belief, this disconnect between democracy and reformism is not unusual: "Think of ideas such as 'enlightened authoritarianism' or 'the Singapore model'. They both imply reformism without democracy. Also think of the 'reformist' Morocco, and 'pluralist', 'divided', but often politically stuck, Lebanon".
"But this disconnect between 'reformism' and 'democracy' still creates problems for how the EU thinks of its neighbors and how it designs policies that aim at rewarding 'progress'. Most of the EU hopes to see its Eastern partnersВ being both democratic and reformist. But this might be a bit too much to expect. The EU should probably lower the expectations bar and accept that having either 'reformism' or 'pluralism' are already good achievements that deserve more support, not 'fatigue'. At the end of the day most other EU neighbors are neither reformist, nor democratic. Both East and South", presumes Nicu Popescu.
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