Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihai Popșoi took the oath of office. The ceremony took place on Monday morning at the Presidential Palace and involved President Maia Sandu and Prime Minister Dorin Recean, IPN reports.
“I swear to devote all my strength and skills to the prosperity of the Republic of Moldova, to respect the Constitution and laws of the country, to defend democracy, fundamental human rights and freedoms, the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Moldova,” swore Mihai Popșoi.
Maia Sandu said that Mihai Popșoi has a solid academic background and stood out through an intense activity on the platform of parliamentary diplomacy. “He has significantly contributed to establishing and strengthening the Republic of Moldova’s relations with other states and international organizations. He is known by the development partners of the Republic of Moldova. He worked together with other colleagues from the Cabinet to increase the partners’ confidence in the Republic of Moldova and, respectively, I’m fully confident that things will develop well,” stated the official.
The foreign policy objectives remain the same: to anchor the Republic of Moldova definitively in the free world; to take decisive steps on the path of European integration and to represent the interests of the Republic of Moldova and its citizens. “We have a lot of work to do. We have important actions to take to start negotiations and to carry out negotiations on accession to the European Union. And even if we have a separate institution that will deal with this process, the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains important, especially to further cooperate with the EU member states,” said President Sandu.
Mihai Popșoi took over as minister of foreign affairs following the resignation tendered by Nicu Popescu. The position of minister for European affairs will be held by Cristina Gerasimov, who will also be Moldova’s chief negotiator in the process of integration into the European Union. She will also head the Office for European Integration – a new entity that will be set up.
