Moldova shrugs off sleazy image to plead for visa deal

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 24/11/05

Despite its reputation as a centre for people-smuggling and organised crime, Moldova is to begin a campaign to win visa-free travel to the EU. The Moldovan authorities are pressing Brussels to open talks on visa-free travel ahead of the accession of Romania to the EU, expected in 2007.

Under the terms of EU membership, from 1 January 2007 Romania will require visas from Moldovan citizens, who currently only need a passport to travel to Romania. The two countries share close ties and a common language and the authorities in Chisinau are concerned about the impact of restricted access to Romania on their citizens.

A year before restrictions are due to come into force, Moldovan diplomats are pressing the EU to open talks on visa-free access to the EU.

"It will take at least a year," said one Moldovan diplomat, adding that visa-free access is a diplomatic priority for the country.

According to Arcadie Barbarosie, director of the Chisinau-based Institute for Public Policy, visa requirements could have a similar effect to previous changes in border rules.

In 2002 Romania began requesting passports for border crossings.

"When the passport requirement was introduced, we did an assessment of the impact on cross-border commerce and, actually, small border traffic fell dramatically," he said.

Barbarosie added that the primary impact is unlikely to be felt by the estimated 1,984 Moldovan-Romanian joint ventures in Romania.

"The biggest impact will be felt in the human dimension... there are lots of students studying in Romania, exchanges that are cultural and scientific and lots of people have relatives on both side of the border," he said.

According to Romanian government figures, 2,300 scholarships have been awarded this year to Moldovan students studying in Romania.

Moldova's hopes of reaching a deal have been buoyed by a recent agreement between the EU and Russia to work towards visa-free travel for Russian citizens.

The EU is also expected to begin talks on visa- free access for Ukrainian citizens on 1 December at a summit in Kiev, talks which could be concluded by the middle of next year.

But, so far, the Commission has said that it is unable to open talks with Moldova because of a lack of resources.

Fears remain about the prospect of opening up the EU's borders to people-smugglers and criminal gangs. But Barbarosie said such fears were misplaced and warned that visa requirements amounted to the creation of a "paper curtain" in place of the Iron Curtain.

"All these restriction against Moldovans do not make a difference for criminal factions, but for scientific and cultural relations. The criminal gangs can pay more and they will get the visas. It is unfortunate, but that is the way it is."

Meanwhile, fearing it may be too late to win visa-free travel by 2007, during a meeting in Bucharest on 16 November Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev urged his Romanian counterpart Calin Popescu Tariceanu to make visas free and easy to obtain.

Article reports on a campaign by Moldova to win visa-free travel to the EU. The Moldovan authorities were urging Brussels to open negotiations on visa-free travel ahead of the accession of Romania to the EU, expected in 2007. Under the terms of EU membership, from 1 January 2007 Romania was to require visas from Moldovan citizens, who only needed a passport to travel to Romania beforehand.