The European Commission has submitted to the European Parliament a legislative proposal for a €90 million macro-financial assistance package for Moldova, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle has told an EPP public hearing on EU-Moldova relations ahead of the EU-Moldova Cooperation Council on 15 June. He told his audience that Moldova was “the front runner in EU assistance in this part of the world,” Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a press release from the EU Delegation to Moldova. The Commissioner said he was proud the EU’s pledge of a €550 million assistance package for Moldova, made at the international donors’ conference in March this year, would materialize in a few weeks with a €45 million programme “to foster economic activity outside Moldova’s urban areas.” Štefan Füle described the Commission’s recently deployed full-fledged fact-finding mission to Moldova as “an important milestone towards a deep and comprehensive free trade area”, which amounts to “a deeper economic integration.” “I now expect the many Commission services involved in this assessment exercise to come up with so called ‘key recommendations’ for Moldova to address before negotiations on a DCFTA can be launched,” said Füle. Visa-free travel is a key objective of EU-Moldova relations in the framework of the Eastern Partnership, he said adding that the Commission had prepared ground for the Cooperation Council to open a visa dialogue. “This visa dialogue will allow us to examine together in a structured manner the conditions for visa-free travel of Moldovan citizens to the European Union. Moreover, in the regional context, this approach applied in the case of Moldova could serve as a model for other Eastern Partnership countries bearing in mind the specificity and progress of each country”, said Commissioner Füle.