European Parliament asks for starting negotiations on Moldova's accession to EU

Chisinau, 19 April /MOLDPRES/ - The European Parliament’s plenum today adopted a resolution, thereby asking for the starting of the negotiations on Moldova’s accession to the European Union till the end of the 2023 year, after the fulfillment of those nine recommendations set forth by the European Commission. MEP Siegfried Muresan has made statements to this effect.     

According to Muresan, the resolution was adopted by wide majority: 555 votes for, 49 against and 26 abstentions, ‘’which shows that Moldova’s European integration enjoys the support of the European MPs from all regions of Europe and from all pro-European political groups.’’     

„The accession to the European Union is the thing which Moldova’s citizens want and this is a thing for which the Chisinau authorities have worked a lot in the last year, making important progress in terms of the reforms needed for the European integration. Russia wants to hinder this and namely therefore, it tries by all means to destabilize the situation in the country and to hamper Moldova’s European integration,’’ Muresan noted.    

The European lawmaker said the European Parliament, in the resolution adopted, demanded that the European institutions increase the financial and technical support provided to Moldova on the next period, both to implement the reforms necessary for the European integration and adopt new measures of support for people, as well as to combat the misinformation, manipulation and other hybrid forms of aggression on behalf of Russia.       

“Concretely, we ask the European Commission to transfer to Moldova the rest of the funds from the macro-financial assistance of 150 million euros, adopted in 2022, as well as the budgetary support of 105 million euros, announced by the European Commission in November 2022. We also expect the Commission to propose, as quickly as possible, the new package of measures of support for Moldova, demanded by the European Council last month. At the same time, we, the European Parliament, are going to approve a new macro-financial assistance worth 145 million euros for Moldova, which the European Commission proposed in last November. To enhance the support provided to Moldova, we also ask to strengthen the European Union’s Security Hub from Moldova, including though increasing the financial allocations for this hub, as well as the creation of sanctions against the oligarchs who, along with Russia, want to destabilize Moldova,’’ the MEP also said.      

Siegfried Muresan noted that the European MPs were willing to help Moldova through boosting the commercial relations with the European Union and full opening of the European market for the Moldovan products and services. ‘’We demand the full liberalization of the trade between the European Union and Moldova and the gradual integration of Moldova on EU’s Single Market. By adopting these commercial measures as soon as possible, we make sure that Moldova’s citizens will feel the benefits of the European integration as quickly as possible, before the accession to the European Union itself,’’ the official added.