The Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Moldova Janis Mažeiks said the application for EU membership submitted by Moldova is being examined by the European institutions. The diplomat expressed his conviction that the European Union will strictly respect all the accession rules and the Republic of Moldova will follow the same stages in the European integration process as all the EU member states did, IPN reports.

Janis Mažeiks said that Moldova’s application is being examined in Brussels together with the applications of Ukraine and Georgia. The EU member states will not yet bypass the strict accession rules in favor of any of the applicant states.

“This is the first step that any country that wants to become a member of the EU should take. Among the first stages was the Council of the European Union’s decision to ask the Commission to pronounce on the issue. The task of the Commission is to formulate an opinion about the applications filed by the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia. The European Union will not avoid or ignore particular rules. The same procedures will be followed,” Janis Mažeiks stated in the talk show “Prime Time” on PrimeTV channel.

The European diplomat avoided trenchantly saying if the Transnistrian region is an obstacle to Moldova’s integration into the EU, but noted that the peaceful settlement is one of the priorities of the European community.

“The European Union builds its relationship with the Republic of Moldova by recognizing its territorial integrity within the internationally recognized borders and hopes for a peaceful settlement of the Transnistrian conflict, which will ensure a special status for the Transnistrian region. The European Union builds its relationship with the entire country, as a whole. For example, the Association Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement are applied in the Transnistrian region and this region benefits a lot from the Free Trade Agreement. This means that this region is involved in the relationship with the European Union,” stated Janis Mažeiks.

He said he wasn’t surprised at the recent request by the self-styled Transnistrian authorities to recognize the independence of the region as this is old rhetoric.

“It is not for the first time that such requests are made. This does not change our relationship with the Republic of Moldova. We will build this relationship in the way we did until now, in the same format under which we take confidence building measures with the involvement of the Transnistrian region. But all these procedures are based on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova,” noted the diplomat.