For Moldova, joining the European Union is no longer simply a question of adopting thousands of pages of European legislation. It is a race to transform a state whose institutions, economy and political culture still bear the marks of decades of Soviet rule and a difficult transition while resisting pressure from a Russia determined to keep the country within its orbit.
“We are not as advanced as other candidate countries,” Moldova’s minister for European integration Cristina Gherasimov told EUobserver – pointing to fellow applicants such as Montenegro, Serbia or North Macedonia, which began preparing for accession years before Moldova became a candidate.
For Chișinău, the work now runs on two parallel tracks.
The first is the reform Moldova needs regardless of Brussels: strengthening institutions, tackling corruption and rebuilding trust in the rule of law.
The second is the painstaking process of bringing national legislation into line with EU standards.
“Taken together, they are quite complex,” Gherasimov said.
At the top of the government’s list is the rule of law. Moldova is in the middle of an extensive vetting process for judges and prosecutors, intended to remove officials deemed corrupt and rebuild the judiciary around institutions that can command public confidence.
The reform has met resistance from within the system and also from civil society.
“There is a lot of resistance on behalf of the system that enriched illegally throughout decades,” said the minister. “They would like to keep the status quo.”
Moldovan president Maia Sandu honouring the 35th anniversary of the country. Source: Ramin Mazur.
The government says it is determined to complete the process, arguing that judicial reform and the fight against corruption are ultimately less about satisfying Brussels than about changing the relationship between citizens and the state.
The ambition is striking. The minister says Moldova wants to bring corruption “close to zero”, while acknowledging that completely eliminating corruption from any society is unrealistic. The immediate goal is to ensure that anti-corruption institutions have the powers and resources to do their jobs.
But the EU project is also being framed in Moldova as something larger than institutional reform.