The EU's relations with Moldova: Governance, Partnership or Ignorance?

This article examines recent EU-Moldova relations under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in order to assess the EU's policies and their (limited) effectiveness over the past decade. I draw on the 'external governance approach' and develop the 'partnership as cooperation perspective' to examine which approach prevails in the theory and in the political practice of EU-Moldova relations. Whereas the external governance approach focuses on the expansion of EU rules to assess the effectiveness of the EU's external relations, the partnership perspective draws attention to effective cooperation based on mutual concessions in areas of converging preferences.