EaP CSF contributions to the European Commission Enlargement Package 2025
The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum conducted a consultation on enlargement with civil society organisations from the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia, which are EaP countries with an EU candidate status. The European Commission will adopt its annual Enlargement Package 2025 later in the year, providing a detailed assessment of the state of play and progress made by these countries on their respective paths towards EU accession.
In June 2024, the EU officially opened accession negotiation with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The first cluster of the EU acquis to be opened will be the ‘fundamental’ cluster, which includes the foundations of the rule of law and democracy and focuses on reforms that will determine the overall pace of negotiations.
In view of the European Commission Enlargement Package 2025, the EaP CSF consultation focused on issues pertaining to Chapter 23: Judiciary and fundamental rights and Chapter 24: Justice, freedom and security of the EU acquis, which will be the first two chapters to be opened within the fundamentals cluster.
Here are some key country highlights and recommendations that we issued to the European Commission:
Georgia
- Independent Judiciary and Media: There is a pressing need for reforms to ensure the independence and transparency of the judiciary, protect media freedom, and safeguard the rights of journalists. This includes preventing political interference in judicial processes, ensuring timely and accessible court decisions.
- Protection of Civil Liberties: Immediate action is needed to halt the crackdown on civil society, including the repeal of restrictive laws like the “foreign agents” law, and to protect the rights to freedom of assembly, speech, and protest. Strengthening the legal framework to prevent the misuse of state power and ensuring the fair treatment of activists and journalists, free and fair elections are critical steps toward restoring public trust in democratic institutions.
Moldova
- Functioning of the judiciary: The vetting of the members of the Supreme Court of Justice is progressing; the main challenge is the selection of non-judge members. Despite the regular information sessions with law professionals, academia and civil society specialists conducted by the Ministry of Justice and Superior Council of Magistracy to compete for the positions of non-judge members, few candidates applied. The vetting of the courts of appeal is ongoing. The main issue is the lack of human resources at the Court of Appeal of Chișinău and other courts, such as Comrat and Cahul, while temporary measures adopted by the Superior Council of Magistracy to delegate temporary judges from other courts to the courts of appeal are not ideal in the mid-to-long term. Moreover, the vetting of prosecutors should be sped up as no major progress has been made.
- Fight against corruption and organised crime: The announced reform to create a new specialised anti-corruption and fight against organised crime prosecutor’s office by dissolving the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (APO) risks jeopardising current and future investigation of high-level corruption and criminal organised crimes. An ex-ante thorough assessment of feasibility, clear roadmap for implementation and transition period should be conducted. Effectively implementation of the reform ahead of autumn’s parliamentary elections, when cases of vote-buying schemes will intensify, looks unrealistic. The APO is still in the process of being reformed; the Office still lacks human, technical and financial resources and requires a higher number of prosecutors, investigation officers, equipment and specialists. A temporary measure is to create a special unit within the General Prosecutor’s Office tasked with monitoring cases of high-level corruption, and joint investigation teams of prosecutors to work on high-level political corruption cases.
- Fundamental rights: At present, no legislation or responsible body handling cases of breaches of human rights in the Transnistrian region is in place. Civil society calls on the Moldovan authorities to set up a responsible body tasked with implementing normative acts and inform the people from the Transnistrian region about the procedures to follow on such cases.
Ukraine
- Independent Judiciary: civil society calls for the continued implementation of justice reforms and the judiciary, and for the inclusion of civil society and international experts in decision-making processes. Ukraine’s Judicial Reform Roadmap should outline all the key reforms that Ukraine must implement to receive green light for EU accession. Judicial selection should involve international experts – this mechanism should be preserved until Ukraine’s judicial system meets European standards. This would safeguard the impartiality and credibility of the system. These reforms are essential for fostering a judiciary that is both independent and resistant to corruption, thereby for strengthening public trust in the rule of law.
- Independent Media: Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has severely impacted independent media. Journalists face physical danger and continue to struggle with the economic consequences of the war. Russian interference, propaganda, and cyberattacks pose significant challenges. The situation has been further exacerbated by the USAID funding freeze, which threatens media independence and could lead to increased control by oligarchs and foreign propaganda. Civil society calls to prioritise journalists’ physical and digital safety and to develop independent and transparent financial support systems for independent media to counter disinformation.
