Until now, Lithuania made effort to ensure the adoption of the most favorable decisions for Moldova concerning its European integration agenda and Lithuania’s position on Moldova remains unchanged, Linas Linkevicius, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Lithuania, has told IPN in an interview on July 1, 2013, when Lithuania takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union.
“Lithuania, as one of the most open and consistent supporters of Moldova in its European aspirations, even before taking over the presidency, sincerely made effort to ensure the adoption of the most favorable decisions for Moldova concerning its European integration agenda. The status of president does not enable us to openly announce our position or to express our approving attitude towards the opinions of the EU member states. But I want to assure you that Lithuania’s position on Moldova remains unchanged,” said the Lithuanian official.
He considers that Moldova is now close to achieving the goals ser for the November Eastern Partnership summit. “Several days ago, after the meeting of the EU – Moldova Cooperation Council, it was announced that the talks between the EU and Moldova on the Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, were closed. That’s why I will dare to say that Moldova is closer than ever to achieving the goal set for the Vilnius summit - to initial the Association Agreement. I would like to note that the closing of the negotiations on the agreement that is unprecedented owing to its new-generation ambitious character, not mentioning the fact that the talks on the Free Trade Area were completed in an impressively short period of 16 months, during which Moldova won the fame of leader of the pro-European reforms, represents an enormous success of your country,” stated the minister.
Linas Linkevicius confirmed that the EU followed attentively the latest political developments in Moldova, with a number of high-ranking European officials approving of the overcoming of the political crisis during the recent visit paid by the new Moldovan Premier Iurie Leanca to Brussels. “It seems normal to me for the Moldovan head of Government, whose top priorities include the continuation of the European agenda, to be received by the senior officials of the European Commission after the solving of the internal political crisis that was followed very attentively both by Brussels and by other partners of Moldova. We all care about Moldova. I’m sure that the only and really sincere interest of Brussels was always the Republic of Moldova, which bases its development on the European values,” the Lithuanian foreign minister said in the interview for the IPN titled “Moldova is closer than ever to achieving goal set for Vilnius”.
