Moldovan Environment Ministry participates in EUROSFAT 2023 Forum, dedicated to Moldova's European integration

Chisinau, 29 November /MOLDPRES/ - The European Union and New Horizons was the title of the EUROSFAT Forum 2023, held in Chisinau on 28 November, with the participation of the Environment Ministry. The event provided a concept for an open dialogue on the axis, Belgium-Romania-Moldova. This is an exercise for the public, private sector, civil society and the pro-European academic environment, of defining the strategic directions for Moldova’s European integration.          

The participants in the event referred to the progress made by Moldova one year after the receiving of the status of country candidate for accession to EU, the level of fulfillment of those nine recommendations of the European Commission, the perspectives of the opening of the negotiations on accession, regional cooperation with the member states, in the perspective of Moldova’s accession to EU, etc.    

During the discussion on problems related to the environment and energy titled, Road to sustainability: future of environment and energy system of Moldova, speakers referred to the way to the energy security and efficiency, reformation of the system of environmental taxes, enforcement of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). ‘’EU comes up with success models in the sense of environmental protection and we have just only to implement them,’’ Environment Minister Iordanca-Rodica Iordanov said.     

The official noted that the Environment Ministry did not aspire to the collection of ever more taxes and accumulation of payments to the budget. Iordanov said the real goal of the institution was to reduce the interest in polluting, to preserve the current natural resources, to invest in environment-friendly technologies.  

Among the organizers of the event, there are Europuls – European Expertise Centre, Expert-Grup, Institute for European Policies and Reforms, Promo-LEX, Institutum Virtutes Civilis, as well as the Soros Moldova Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation – the Forum’s financers.    

In the last ten years, the EUROSFAT Forum has been representing a success model in the connection of Romania’s citizens to the European agenda; it was a forum of discussions between decision-makers at the European level, nationally and locally, representatives of the civil society, business environment and the academic one. The results of the EUROSFAT Forum were recognized at the European level and Europuls was nominated national winner of the Charlemange Prize for Young Europeans for the EUROSFAT Forum 2022 – the best project on promotion of the European agenda. This is the model which Europuls is implementing for the first time in 2023 in Moldova as well, along with the Soros Moldova Foundation, following editions successfully organized in Romania.