The Government of Moldova is fully committed to the reform process and the modernization of the country on the path of European integration. “Our country’s place is in the European Union. We will be members of the same family owing to our determination and to the friends who always help us,” Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, stated on the sidelines of the meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council where he discusses bilateral cooperation issue with his counterparts from Romania, France, Germany, Lithuania, Croatia and Sweden, IPN reports.
“Together with my good friend Bogdan Aurescu, we talked about energy security and the identification of alternative sources of energy. With the assistance of the Romanian authorities, Moldova will build a natural gas reservoir on Romania’s territory,” stated Nicu Popescu.
He thanked the EU ministers for their solidarity and assistance in organizing the Moldova Support Platform conference that will be held in Berlin on April 5. The goal of this international event is to mobilize greater assistance for the Republic of Moldova and for the exemplary efforts to manage the humanitarian crisis generated by the war in Ukraine.
The Moldovan official had a bilateral meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis with whom he discussed the regional security situation. He thanked Lithuania for the €750,000 provided to the Government of the Republic of Moldova for managing the flow of Ukrainian refugees and for the relocation of about 2,000 refugees to Lithuania.
Nicu Popescu welcomed the support for Moldova’s European aspirations in the discussions with the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Croatia Gordan Grlić Radman and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden Ann Linde.
During his working visit to Brussels, Minister Popescu also discussed issues from the Moldova–EU agenda with European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi.
Nicu Popescu told the European official about the impact of the war in Ukraine, saying that over 360,000 Ukrainian refugees entered Moldova since the start of the war and about 100,000 of them are now in Moldova. He thanked Team Europe for the prompt response to Moldovan authorities’ requests for humanitarian aid at bilateral level and through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The interlocutors also discussed the assistance necessities for building Moldova’s resilience to the current crisis and the associated effects.
Deputy Premier Popescu underlined the necessity of increasing the non-reimbursable financial assistance provided by the EU for alleviating the effects of the socioeconomic crisis on Moldova, including the impact of the sanitary and energy crises.
