Iurie Calestru, program director at the Institute for Development and Expertise of Projects (IDEP), believes that in order to facilitate the absorption of European funds, Moldova needs qualified specialists. “It is important to learn from the experience of other countries, especially Romania, and rely on the new financing instruments with confidence, accepting a small dose of risk to achieve long-term benefits,” the expert stated in IPN’s public debate “Moldovan-Romanian cooperation in accessing European funds. Iurie Calestru noted that at the 13th edition of the conference aimed at boosting the absorption of European funds, held in Brussels, the participants from Moldova and Romania had the opportunity to interact directly with decision-makers of the European Commission responsible for European funds.
“We at IDEP anticipated the submission of the Republic of Moldova’s application for accession to the EU in March 2022 and the European Commission’s acceptance in June 2022. In this regard, we have been organizing monthly, since January 2022, actions to acquire skills in the field of project management. The purpose of these training sessions with the management teams of key institutions in the Republic of Moldova was and is to create skills, facilitate the exchange of good practices with counterparts from Romania, in particular, and expand the cooperation network for future partnerships. And this network of cooperation and interinstitutional partnerships for the proper training of potential Moldovan implementers will boost the absorption and implementation of projects with good results, with the hope that they will ensure 100% absorption of European funds and the prompt aligning of the Republic of Moldova with the European standards,” said Iurie Calestru
The IDEP program director noted that any visit to identify good practices contributes to shaping a clear view on the objectives, builds confidence in achieving them and facilitates the development of a roadmap showing “what we should do so that in a particular period of time we can have a similar project in the locality or in the organization we are part of”.
Speaking about the formation of a European grouping of territorial cooperation between Romania and Moldova, Iurie Calestru said that this group could help Moldova reach the European standards at citizen, locality, organization levels as soon as possible. “For the Republic of Moldova, it would be a very good opportunity, together with Romania or thanks to Romania, to be able to access (funds), not waiting for a call, as it is usually practiced, to identify the problem, establish the partnership, prepare documents and instantly submit projects to funds that are currently unavailable to Moldova, but are available through the European grouping of territorial cooperation,” said the IDEP program director.
The public debate entitled “Moldovan-Romanian cooperation in accessing European funds” was the second installment of the series “Double integration through cooperation and information. Continuity”. IPN News Agency carries out this project with the support of the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova of the Government of Romania.
