Social-Democratic MEP Andi Cristea called upon Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn to explain his assertion that the EU will not extend in the next ten years, made in Berlin. Andi Cristea underlined that the countries from the Eastern neighborhood of the EU, unlike those from its Southern neighborhood, are the only ones that can have the European perspective, given their geographical position, on the European continent, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the MEP.

“Mister Commissioner, I ask you to provide additional details about your statement that the EU will not extend in the next ten years, given the limits of your five-year institutional mandate,” Andi Cristea said in the meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, within the debates on the revision of the European Neighborhood Policy.

“We are witnesses to major divergences at the level of aspirations coming from the East. Our duty is to make more for those states that have real and tangible European ambitions. I struggle for the final version of the text to contain the idea that a European perspective must be offered to the leading EaP countries, especially Moldova. It is a professional priority for me, as a correct advocate of Moldova and its European road, for this country to obtain this recognition on the part of the European Parliament.”

The European official welcomed the Moldovan Speaker Andrian Candu’s decision to make public the Kroll report concerning the largest banking theft in Moldova’s history, saying the people have the right to be informed about the circumstances in which the money was stolen, while the judicial system has the duty to punish those to blame as the EU follows this subject with maximum attention.