We will support the effort of the Republic of Moldova to join the EU with everything we can, with expertise, with money if needed.
“We will support the effort of the Republic of Moldova to join the EU with everything we can, with expertise, with money if needed,” Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on Friday evening in B1TV’s Tudor Mușat show.
Asked if it does not create a kind of perception that the Republic of Moldova is somehow dependent or that Romania is trying to create this image of a dependence of the Republic of Moldova only on the Romanian efforts to bring to the European Union, Aurescu answered:
“First of all, yesterday’s solution is the result of the efforts of the Republic of Moldova and is mainly the merit of the Republic of Moldova, with a deep European leadership dedicated to institutional reforms, and again, profoundly, it is practically a deserved result of the Republic of Moldova. This does not mean that Romania will stop for a moment to fully support this effort of the Republic of Moldova to be closer and to finally integrate into the European Union. In fact, we supported not only politically, but also technically the efforts of the Republic of Moldova. At the time of receiving the questionnaire for substantiating the Commission’s opinion of April 11 on the application for accession of the Republic of Moldova, we did not contribute in our expertise with the development of this questionnaire, based on the main, substantial effort they made. . the authorities in Chisinau “, said Bogdan Aurescu.
“After concluding this stage and the European Council decided for Ukraine on the one hand, for the Republic of Moldova the granting of the candidate status, with the fulfillment of certain conditions until the moment when the accession negotiations will actually start, a new stage of effort begins. , a reform effort that will have to be made in a very serious, very consistent, very methodical way by the Chisinau authorities and, again, we will support this effort with everything we can, with expertise, with money if needed ”, the foreign minister added.
Furthermore, Aurescu reviewed the help that Romania has given to Chisinau so far:
“Here, we have the agreement of 100 million euros, a grant that we grant for development projects in the Republic of Moldova. And, as this agreement is already in force, we expect our partners in Chisinau not to submit concrete project proposals for funding. In April, I co-organized and co-chaired together with my colleagues from Germany and France, in Berlin, a conference for the creation of a Support Platform for the Republic of Moldova and in mid-July we will organize in Bucharest or follow-up conference . to that, where we will continue the support, on the one hand for financing the economy of the Republic of Moldova – if in Berlin we are successful, to raise about 660 million euros as financial support in various formulas, we will continue this effort at the conference in. Bucharest – on the other hand, in Berlin we have set up a number of working groups with international support, with co-chairs from various interested states, to support exactly this reform process. And now they are becoming extremely useful in the context of preparing to take these steps that the European Commission has set out. “
Photo source: Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova within the Romanian Government