Moldova and Italy during the next few years will exchange textbooks, teachers and scholarships intended for students from both of the countries within the first cultural cooperation executive program between the Government of Moldova and the Government of Italy for 2020-2022, which was signed on the sidelines of the Central European Initiative Summit in Rome, IPN reports.

Other important divisions of the program refer to cooperation in such areas as culture, arts and design, science and technology, archeology, restoration and conservation of cultural heritage, archives and libraries, information and cooperation in radio-television, sport and human rights.

In his speech at the event, Prime Minister Ion Chicu said the Central European Initiative, which marks 30 years of its founding, became an intergovernmental engine for regional cooperation between the countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe and contributed to strengthening the dialogue with the EU.

While in Rome, Ion Chicu had meetings with his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Conte, Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Olivér Várhelyi, the Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenković and with the Prime Minister of Serbia Ana Brnabić. They discussed the bilateral relations and the cooperation opportunities between the two states.