Moldovan PM's press statement after meeting of Moldova-EU Association Council

Along with my colleagues from the government, I today participated in the sixth meeting of the Moldova-EU Association Council.

We have discussed the progress made in the enforcement of the Association Agreement. We reaffirmed Moldova’s European aspirations and the determination to observe our commitments. This is not just a statement; this is the clear-cut political mandate given to the governance following the snap parliamentary elections. This is what the citizens expect from us at home.   

We informed the European partners about our vision of the country’s reformation – especially in the justice and anticorruption sector. People expect progress in the files of memory, such as the bank fraud and we confirmed the will to help the law-enforcement bodies to carry this investigation through.  

We have the openness of our European partners on these subjects and we thank them for the support provided.

We discussed also our priorities in the economic field and the sectoral cooperation. EU remains our principal commercial partner and investor. We work intensely to export more Moldovan products on the European market, based on the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), especially in order to get the export of animal origin products.

We thanked our European partners for the assistance provided to our country. The direct budgetary support and the macro-financial assistance recently provided by EU help us maintain the budgetary stability. We are quite grateful for this assistance, as well as for all the support provided to Moldova to combat the pandemic.   

We daily felt the European solidarity, expressed through the Team Europe initiative. Presently, when we face a new wave of diseases, this solidarity stays extremely important. The medical equipment provided by EU and the Member States, and the anti-Covid vaccines help us fight this pandemic and saves lives.  

The biggest challenge for us, at the moment, is the increase in the prices for natural gas and ensuring the supply of gas to Moldova, especially on the cold season. We discussed this issue both yesterday and today. Just yesterday, during the discussion with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, we received quite good news for our country. The European Union provided us with non-refundable assistance worth 60 million euros, in order to help us overcome the energy crisis. It is about an additional sum to the Plan on Economic Recovery. This money will be used to compensate to the citizens the increase the gas prices and help them on this crisis period. Also yesterday, at the meeting with EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson, we launched a high-level dialogue in the energy sector, in order to discuss both urgent subjects and the reforms needed in this sector.   

We agreed on launching a high-level dialogue also in the political field and security between Moldova and the European Union. During the Dialogue, we will discuss topical subjects of foreign policy and ways of strengthening the resilience against the hybrid threats, misinformation and crisis situations.   

Another subject on the agenda of the today’s discussions was also the Transnistrian conflict settlement. We appreciate the EU’s position on the support of Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We will work in continuation with the European partners on platforms available, such as our bilateral dialogue, as well as the 5+2 format, in order to advance on this file.    

Moldova is interested in playing a more active role within the Eastern Partnership. We want the Eastern Partnership’s Summit to be a successful event, with an ambitious agenda of cooperation and opportunities of integration for the associated partners.

The quite fruitful discussions which we had with more European commissioners will help us advance on the way of the European integration and turn to good account the openness displayed by EU. This deals both with the sectors to which I referred and new fields of cooperation – environment, digital sphere, reducing the roaming tariffs – subjects which we discussed with Commissioners Breton, Sinkevicius, Gabriel, Simson, Dombrovskis and Varhelyi.

I would like the constructive dialogue between Moldova and EU to continue to make progress. In this context, I cordially invite you, Mr. High representative Josep Borrell, to visit Moldova as soon as possible, along with your colleagues, Commissioner Varhelyi and other European commissioners, in order to continue our common bilateral agenda in Chisinau as well.    

Thank you!