Young people from Moldova and Romania, who are members of students leagues, are ready to lend a hand to the improvement of the agreements of cooperation and twinning between communities and localities from both sides of the Prut River. They want to ease the task of mayors who want to establish relations of cooperation outside the borders.

In a news conference hosted by IPN, Ieronim Ciobanu, vice president of the Bessarabian Students’ League, encouraged the mayors from the Republic of Moldova to seek help from these communities if they encounter difficulties in finding a Romanian locality with which to twin. “The mayors who are ready to sign twining agreements with Romania will receive our support as we have databases with mayors from Romania. We started to work with localities in the Republic of Moldova, which signed the symbolic union statement. We will create an online platform to facilitate twinning agreements between localities from Romania, which are ready to twin, and localities form the Republic of Moldova” stated Ieronim Ciobanu.

The president of honor of the Iasi Students’ League Silvian Emanuel Man said that it is very important that the investments made under these cooperation agreements support the citizens. “In time, Russia occupied the Romanian space for 12 times, leaving crime and robbed areas behind. Given this occupation and the current aggression against Ukraine, we want to do our best, as the parents of the Great Union did, and to secure our generation’s contribution to bringing the two banks of the Prut closer,” he stated.

Silvian Emanuel Man said that particular attempts are made to spend the money provided by Romania for Moldovan communities in personal interests, to polish the image of politicians who pose as pro-Europeans. “We, as an organization, as a part of civil society, managed to block particular financing that was to be directed by Romanian politicians to pro-Russian politicians in the Republic of Moldova. There is this phenomenon when out of love for the brothers from the left side of the Prut, politicians from the right side of the Prut do not realize the local political context or particular realities. There is this absolutely unpleasant phenomenon involving politicians who receive money from Romania, but swear the Romanian taxpayers, deride Romania and, in different public events, treat the Romanians as fascists, Nazis, occupants. But these characters during a year have done nothing but supported Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” stated the president of honor of the Iasi Students’ League.

Silvian Emanuel Man noted there is enormous potential to connect the communities from both sides of the Prut. “Twinning between localities, between bishoprics, between school units can be forged. There are funds and we have a lot of generous mayor’s offices in Romania, which can allocate funds for training personnel. Programs to support the young people, economic programs can be implemented for the persons from both banks of the Prut to establish relations of cooperation,” he stated.

The news conference entitled “Study: Twining agreements between localities of the Republic of Moldova and Romania. Students’ view” was held in the framework of the project “Double Integration by Cooperation and Information” that is implemented by IPN News Agency with support from the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova of the Government of Romania.