External assistance for European integration : A qualitative case study analysis of the external assistance symbiosis with the National Strategy Plan and constraints in light with the EU – Moldova integration.

Sammanfattning: This dissertation is a case study of Moldova regarding the influence of external assistance over the National Development Strategies 2020 and 2030 in face of the EU – Moldova Accession Agenda. The external assistance plays a key role for the country’s development but the allocation of the funds might not address the sustainable development goals set by the UN, and therefore the national strategic development plans need to be analysed on correlation. Donors tend to focus on a group of sectors leaving others lower in priority. One sector as such is the judiciary and governance. The European Commission claims that Moldova is making progress so far in adopting reforms, yet stressing that corruption and weak rule of law represent the main concern in the development of the country. The external assistance being allocated for many other sectors but not so much on reforms addressing the respective problem, what should we conclude? Allocating funds for infrastructure development, agriculture, energy, is obviously crucial for the country’s economic development. Nonetheless, the data on financial assistance management is rather hard to find from all the ministries benefiting of programs, and not all donors provide reports either. With weak monitoring mechanisms, according to the Paris Declaration Report 2008, and with a weak justice system from high level of corruption and low transparency, it is rather hard to trust the system overall, and the funds absorption capacity. This thesis aims at exploring the Official Development Assistance (ODA) per sectors, with a special focus on donors’ assistance for the judiciary sector. The intergovernmentalism theory is therefore explaining the states cooperation approach, and the approaches of the theory of constraints was used for stressing on the importance of finding the limitations in external assistance disbursements. Thus the methods used are comparative case studies on the State Chancellery reports and comparisons on correlations and donors. The empirical results therefore show a lack of progress in the judiciary sector explained in the discussing conclusion through a reference to the importance of strict conditionality from donors to recipient countries.