interest in the field of foreign and security policy (Official Journal of the European Union 2017).
2.1 Realization of the Association Agreement in the Republic of Moldova.
The process of modernization and adaptation to European norms.
The Association Agreement signed in 2014 by the EU, and the Republic of Moldova regulates the political, economic, social, and cultural relations between the two entities. For the Republic of Moldova, this agreement represents the transition period in the European integration process. In Moldovan society, there is no clear vision or national consensus on the European future of the country. The process of Europeanisation of the country will depend a lot on the will of the political class and the country's external factors. It is noted that this agreement does not stipulate Moldova's accession to the EU, but Brussels recognizes its European aspirations.
To ensure a structured and coherent implementation of the engagements with the EU, the Republic of Moldova has applied the practice of adopting medium-term National Action Plans to implement the Association Agreement (NAP). By its decision, no. 1472 of December 30, 2016, the Government approved the NAP for the years 2017-2019. Implementing its actions involves strengthening the institutional capacity to harmonize legislation, implement and identify the constraints and costs associated with this process (Government of the Republic of Moldova 2016).
It should be noted that the NAP requires a continuous and systemic legislative effort in all related sectors. Thus, more than 430 European legislative acts are to be transposed into national legislation and approximately 1500 sectoral actions; about 90% of them directly impact the regulatory framework, the business environment, and the country's investment
27 climate. Based on official and parallel estimates made by experts in the field, the NAP implementation rate varies between 42 and 60% in quantitative terms, without assessing the quality of the transposed documents and their application (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova 2016).
After the signing of the Association Agreement (AA) / Deep Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), it is worth mentioning that it lost its European enthusiasm, a phenomenon multiplied by political instability and crises in the banking, budgetary, and economic fields. However, it has been possible to register a rate of harmonization of national legislation with the current acquis Communautaire of AA / DCFTA is 34% of the total number of EU acts for transposition.
The quantitative evaluation of the level of achievement of the NAP for the period 2017-2018 indicates its implementation in the proportion of over 60%. The planned implementation measures for the areas related to economic, sectoral cooperation, and DCFTA were achieved in the proportion of 63%. Simultaneously, the legislative approximation rate is about 30% of the total EU acts provided for transposition for 10 years. However, according to parallel estimates made by independent experts, the level of implementation of AA / DCFTA, but also the NAP is much lower (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova 2018).
Following the provisions of Government Decision no. 808/2014 on economic, sectoral, and DCFTA cooperation, there were over 400 actions to harmonize legislation or organization to promote and implement AA's legal rules (Government of the Republic of Moldova 2014).
Significant progress has been made in improving the country's business environment and entrepreneurship policy. Thus, it was possible to reform the permissive acts and the institutions with control function and the government as a whole. It is worth mentioning here the reduction of the number of permissive acts by over 60%. The modernization of the Labour Code, the reduction of fiscal reports, and the introduction of the mechanism for subsidizing job creation have positively influenced the country's business climate. Also, some progress has been made in the field of energy - both in the area of legislation being harmonized all legislative acts to the European ones related to the Energy Package III, and practically, taking new steps in the construction of the Ungheni - Chisinau gas pipeline, but also in the interconnection electricity systems with Romania and the European Union.
28 It is also worth noting the IT sector's growth, which recorded excellent exports and the opening of the land and air transport sector. Progress in the field of quality infrastructure is also worth mentioning. Thus, it was possible to harmonize national legislation with the EU acquis related to the sector of technical trade barriers, with the adoption of horizontal legislation in standardization, accreditation, conformity assessment, and market surveillance. In the field of standardization, it was possible to adopt over 21 thousand European standards as national standards, and the rate of taking over European standards as Moldovan standards is about 82.3%. Thus, the impact of the actions taken is significant; in particular, it contributes to facilitating trade, increasing the competitiveness of products and services, and giving consumers confidence in the quality, security, and reliability of products and services.
However, a key issue remains to ensure the application of these standards and increase the state's institutional capacity and the possibilities for national companies to ensure compliance (Calmic and Tomsa 2018, 8-19).
Performing a detailed analysis of trade flows for the period 2014-2018, it can be seen that the Republic of Moldova has managed to make good use of the benefits offered by AA / DCFTA. Thus, in 4 years of applying DCFTA, the Republic of Moldova has cumulatively exported to the Community market about 65% of total exports. On the other hand, imports from the EU in the 4 years of applying the DCFTA amount to more than 50% of total imports, mostly equipment, uses, or raw materials for new industries.
The DCFTA benefited the most from the agri-food products on which the initial stake was placed. Their exports increased in value terms by about 30% during the reference period, managing to compensate to some extent the CIS market's loss. At the same time, in 2018, there was an increase of over 70% in exports of agri-food products to the EU in quantitative terms (Lupusor 2018).
It should be noted that the number of companies conducting business with EU countries is constantly increasing. Thus, according to the existing data at the National Bureau of Statistics of Moldova, over 1800 domestic companies perform export operations in the EU, representing over 70% of the total number of exporting companies. Thus, the top countries in which companies in the country export are: Romania, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, and Turkey (National Bureau of Statistics 2018).
29 The lack of implementation of reforms and obligations to the AA was due to frequent government crises, which reduced Moldova's credibility with the European institutions to meet its commitments. Thus, in 2015, the EU suspended financial assistance to Moldova, making any resumption of assistance conditional on the Government of Chisinau fulfilling its obligations to the key areas set out in the Association Agreement (Delegation of the EU to Moldova 2015).
The Association Agreement obliges the Moldovan institutions to transpose the European norms into the national legislation and to harmonize the legislative framework with the European one. Thus, AA becomes a user manual in the perspective of modernization and development of the Republic of Moldova. The National Action Plan on AA implementation is ambitious and strategic in achieving the objectives of the European agenda. Moldova had the fewest successes in 2018 in the judiciary, the fight against corruption, the European administration, and the reform of the banking system (European Parliament 2018).