Third European Commissioner in two months

Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, is expected to visit Chisinau this week. He will be the third Commissioner to come to Moldova in the last two months and this demonstrates the intensiveness of the Moldova-EU cooperation, stated Dirk Schuebel, the Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova. “We attempt to sign on this occasion a Memorandum of understanding on regional policy cooperation. “We can say that the intensive visits' calendar demonstrates that the bilateral relations proceed like clockwork. On the other side of the medal, we are now waiting for the stabilization of the domestic policy framework”, said Dirk Schuebel. Further, the EU official pinpointed the main events that took place on the bilateral level since his last meeting with the press. He singled out the visit of the European Commissioner for Agriculture to Moldova in early June, and the meeting held in Brussels on June 15. “During this meeting in Luxemburg, the biggest news was that we officially opened the visa dialogue between the European Union and Moldova. We expect now the first real meetings on the visa dialogue in early September when experts from Brussels will come here to Chisinau. “Furthermore, we had the visit of 18 strong experts from different directions of the European Commission to analyze the situation with a view to a future opening of negotiations on the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. We are waiting now for the final report and are hopeful that the negotiations on the Agreement can be launched still this year. Also, we had a verification mission of the Food and Veterinary Office which checked the quality of some of the Moldovan products, with a view to extending the list of products for export. “We also held the third round of negotiations on the Association Agreement, which, as previous rounds, worked out very well and advanced in many different areas. Two of the four working negotiation groups the have already finalized their work, and the other groups have also advanced. The next round of negotiations on the Association Agreement will take in Brussels, most likely on October 8”, said the EU ambassador.