The questioning of “enlarging and strengthening Europe” is again in the news, with the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany Annalena Baerbock embarking on a trip to the Western Balkans this week to hold talk on EU enlargement policy with 6 Balkan states. Ongoing instability in Europe has been the EU placing enlargement as an utmost priority, seeing the expansion of the Union as the only way of ensuring security and guaranteeing the region’s common interests. This has come at the expense of what was once a priority for the EU, namely ensuring that democratic rule of law principles are also guaranteed before such a process can move forward.
In this regard, what has attracted less attention has been the precarious state of human rights in Moldova, a country not on the agenda for Minister Baerbock’s road show, but still on the agenda as a potential candidate state for EU membership. Indeed, many a conversation in the international press has been had about the idea of Moldova joining the European Union. These conversations have been expedited in light of the ongoing Ukraine war, with the European union thinking that adding additional countries to the Union have primarily served to strengthen the audacity of the incumbent Sandu government, which has been acting with political impunity to very little fanfare from some of the world’s foremost “protectors” of human rights.
Those following Moldavian politics will know that only last year saw the Moldavian government brandishing its teeth and trying to intimidate those with dissenting opinions. This happened when the government took the extreme step of banning the country’s second largest opposition party by membership, the Chance Party, only days before the election. Making a host of inaccurate claims aimed at justifying their anti-democratic activities, the government took the extreme step only seen taken in truly autocratic countries.
Similarly problematic has been the way in which the country has been dealing with journalists. A report from Freedom House last year explained the way in which it’s getting tougher for investigative journalists in Moldova to access information needed to accurately report on issues facing the country. This is of course no coincidence as in a report titled, “Measuring Transparency of Public Institutions in Moldova”, the country’s public institutions scored 38% in comparison to 45% only one year earlier. This was scored on the basis of evaluating the countries legalization, proactive transparency and access to information upon request. It is not surprising that Moldova was ranked only “partly free” in Freedom Houses annual study of political rights and civil liberties around the world.
It is these issues which the European Union has seemingly decided to look the other way about. Although the process of joining the European Union used to be a rigorous one, it seems that when convenient, one of the world’s foremost protectors of democracy can afford to be selective when this best serves their interest. It is apparent that the rights of the citizens of Moldova being trampled on abused by an allegedly pro-European government simply does not matter, unless this serves Brussels’ whims.
There has yet to be one recent statement from the powers that be in Brussels or the international community more generally expressing concern about the precarious state of human rights in Moldova. These have abandoned our citizens to the decisions of a smiling wolf in sheep’s clothing. And as the old, time proven adage goes, it is not the wolf who looks like a wolf that we need to be the most scared of. Rather, it’s the wolf that looks like a sheep which runs the risk of biting you the hardest.
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