Deepening EU-Moldovan Relations Deepening EU–Moldovan Relations What, why and how? 2nd edition Edited by Michael Emerson and Denis Cenușa CEPS contributors Expert-Grup contributors Steven Blockmans Denis Cenușa Vadim Gumene Michael Emerson Iurie Morcotylo Hrant Kostanyan Dumitru Pîntea Guillaume Van Der Loo Tatiana Savva One of a trilogy of Handbooks explaining the EU’s Association Agreements and DCFTAs with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels Expert-Grup, Chișinău Rowman & Littlefield International, London Published by Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB www.rowmaninternational.com Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. is an affiliate of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and Plymouth (UK) www.rowman.com Copyright © 2018 Centre for European Policy Studies Centre for European Policy Studies Place du Congrès 1, B-1000 Brussels Tel: (32.2) 229.39.11 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.ceps.eu Artwork by Constantin Sunnerberg ([email protected]) The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78661-034-8 Paperback 978-1-78661-035-5 Hardback 978-1-78661-036-2 Ebook The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS List of Tables and Boxes vi Abbreviations vii Preface ix Summary 1 Part I. Political Principles, Rule of Law, and Foreign Policy 13 1. Political principles 14 2. Rule of law and movement of people 24 3. Foreign and security policy 34 Part II. Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area 39 4. Market access for goods 40 5. Trade remedies 50 6. Customs services 52 7. Technical standards for industrial goods 63 8. Food safety regulations 75 9. Services 85 10. Public procurement 96 11. Intellectual property rights 107 12. Competition policy 117 13. Statistics 125 Part III. Economic Cooperation 129 14. Macroeconomic context and financial assistance 130 15. Financial services 137 16. Transport 148 17. Energy 158 18. Environment 168 19. Digital sector 180 20. Consumer protection 191 21. Company law 198 22. Agriculture 206 23. Employment and social policy 215 24. Education, training and culture 222 25. Science and technology 227 26. EU agencies and programmes 231 27. Cross-border cooperation 235 28. Civil society 239 Part IV. Economic Cooperation 244 29. Dispute settlement 245 30. Institutional provisions 250 v List of Tables and Boxes Table S 1. Overview of political principles, rule of law and foreign policy 4 Table S 2. Overview of DCFTA in Moldova 6 Table S 3. Overview of EU-Moldovan economic cooperation 8 Table 4.1 Moldovan products subject to annual duty-free TRQs for import into the EU 41 Table 4.2 Trade turnover between Moldova and the EU ($ mn) 43 Table 4.3 Exports of Moldova to the EU that increased ($ mn) 44 Table 4.4 Moldova’s trade structure by country or region, 2013 and 2017 45 Table 4.5 Main EU imports from, and exports to, Moldova, 2017 45 Table 9.1 National treatment or MFN reservations to establishment 86 Table 9.2 Market access and national treatment reservations for cross-border services* 88 Table 9.3 EU trade in services with Moldova, 2014-15 (€ mn) 92 Table 10.1 Adjusted thresholds for the application of public procurement rules 97 Table 10.2 Adjusted indicative time schedule for approximation of public procurement rules 100 Table 14.1 Main economic indicators of Moldova 133 Table 14.2 EU budgetary assistance to Moldova, by sector, 2014–20 134 Table 19.1 Aspects of ICT development in Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and Romania 183 Table 21.1 Overview of EU company law directives for approximation 199 Table 21.2 Progress with implementation of EU company law directives 203 Table 25.1 Main thematic priorities of Horizon 2020 228 Table 25.2 Horizon 2020 data on proposals for Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia 230 Box 9.1 Summary of commitments and reservations of the EU and Moldova for services sectors 91 Box 11.1 Timeline of steps taken by Moldova in acceding to IPR conventions and organisations 112 Box 15.1 The 2014 bank fraud 142 Box 18.1 Basic features of the Moldovan environment 172 Box 22.1 Summary of EU agricultural policy laws referred to in the Agreement 207 Box 23.1 Relationship between EU employment and social directives and ILO conventions 217 Box 26.1 EU agencies open to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia* 231 Box 26.2 EU programmes open to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia* 232 Box 27.1 Regions of Moldova, Romania and Ukraine participating in cross-border cooperation 236 Box 27.2 Romania–Ukraine–Moldova cross-border projects, 2007–13 237 vi ABBREVIATIONS AA Association Agreement ATM Autonomous trade measures ACAA Agreement on Conformity and Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products AEO Authorised Economic Operator ANRE National Agency for Energy Regulation ANSA National Agency for Food Safety ATP Autonomous trade preferences CAA Common Aviation Agreement CE Conformité Européenne CEN European Committee for Standardisation CENELEC European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CJEU Court of Justice of the European Union COSME Competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises CRS Computer reservation system CSDP Common Security and Defence Policy DCFTA Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area DG Directorate-General DO Designation of origin DSM Dispute settlement mechanism EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ECtHR European Court of Human Rights EESC European Economic and Social Committee EIB European Investment Bank ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute EU European Union EUBAM EU Border Assistance Mission GATS General Agreement on Trade in Services GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade vii GI Geographical indication GMO Genetically modified organism GOST Gosudarstvenny Standart (State Standard) GPA Government Procurement Agreement GSP Generalised System of Preferences ICT Information and communication technology ILO International Labour Organization IMF International Monetary Fund IPR Intellectual property right MAFI Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry MFN Most favoured nation MOLDAC National Institute of Metrology and the National Centre of Accreditation NBM National Bank of Moldova NBS National Bureau of Statistics NCFM National Commission for Financial Markets NCIP National Commission on Intellectual Property NCTS New Computerised Transit System NGO Non-governmental organisation NIPS National Intellectual Property Strategy OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OGP Open Government Partnership OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe PEM Pan-Euro-Mediterranean system of rules of origin PLLC Public limited liability company SPS Sanitary and phytosanitary (food safety) regulations TBT Technical barriers to trade (industrial product standards) TRIPS Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights TRQ Tariff rate quota UNDP United Nations Development Programme VLAP Visa Liberalisation Action Plan WTO World Trade Organization viii PREFACE his Handbook seeks to explain the contents of a long and complex legal treaty – the Association Agreement, which Tincludes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) – between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union (EU). Like most complex legal texts, it cannot be read like a book. Therefore, the purpose here is to make it possible for anyone to understand what each chapter of the Agreement means, in terms of both the nature of the commitments that the parties take on and the prospects for their implementation. The first edition of this Handbook was published in 2016. Much has happened in the intervening two years in Moldova towards implementing the Agreement. The purpose therefore of this second edition is to move beyond explaining the Agreement, and to give an account of how it is being implemented and to offer some preliminary evaluation of the process. The Handbook has in mind a broad range of readers, including officials, parliamentarians, business leaders, lawyers, business consultants, think tanks, civil society organisations, university teachers, trainers, students and journalists. The 30 chapters in this Handbook are mainly the same as those in the Agreement, but they are not identical. Some chapters of lesser interest in the Agreement are not covered here, and there is some rearrangement of the various chapter headings. The present Handbook is one of a trilogy that covers very similar but not identical agreements between the EU on the one hand, and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine on the other. All three books are available electronically for free downloading in English and the respective languages of the three countries at www.3dcftas.eu. There are some references in the Handbook to an Association Agenda, which is a document drawn up jointly by Moldova and the EU, reviewing progress in implementing the Association Agreement, and which usefully provides updating and some greater detail on various topics. The Agreement and Agenda are thus not to be ix x PREFACE confused. The official texts of both documents are also available in English and Romanian at www.3dcftas.eu. A much shorter and more accessible version of the first edition of the Handbook is available, with the aim of reaching a wider readership, including students. This version is also available for free downloading in English, Romanian and Russian at www.3dcftas.eu.