Moldova frets of being forgotten as Ukraine pushes for EU entry

Bloomberg

With all eyes on Ukraine as it strives to mount the first rung of the process to join the European Union, neighbour Moldova worries that its own push to join the bloc may be forgotten.
Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania on the EU’s eastern frontier, Europe’s poorest nation has struggled since
independence in 1991. It has suffered from rampant corruption, political swings between Moscow and the West and a frozen conflict in separatist-held Transnistria, where the presence of Russian troops poses a risk of spillover from the war next door.
Pressing the message that Moldovans were ready to anchor themselves to a European future, even before Vladimir Putin invaded their neighbour, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita took to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to drum up support.
She said the land-locked country of 2.6 million was pushing ahead with strengthening its institutions and bolstering the rule of law, key requirements to be considered an EU candidate. But with the economy struggling and at the mercy of Russian gas supplies that transverse Transnistria, she said there was only a narrow window for
action to assess Moldova’s application for entry, which it submitted on March 3.
“The time is now,” she said in an interview. “It’s very important for us not to be forgotten, left behind or become a gray area. The people of Moldova have voted massively for European integration a while before the war even started.”
As recently as 2018, the EU suspended aid to Moldova, exhausted by a seemingly perpetual carousel of broken reform pledges and spectacular money-laundering scandals. A year later, a government led by Prime Minister — now President — Maia Sandu came to power pledging to improve governance, clean out revenue-sapping state enterprises and overhaul a chronically politicised judiciary.