Cristian Diaconescu: Romania backs cooperation between local administrations from Moldova and Romania

“Romania's Foreign Ministry will grant all its support to the actions to be started regarding the cross-border cooperation between the local administrations from Moldova and Romania,” said Cristian Diaconescu, the Romanian Foreign Minister after meeting Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca on January 22, Info-Prim Neo reports. Both the Romanian Foreign Minister and the Chisinau mayor underlined the importance of the cross-border cooperation between the local administrations from the two countries both in terms of getting European funds, and regarding the development of direct relationships between the local administrations from Moldova and Romania. The mayor proposed that the local public administrations from Romania get directly involved in concrete projects of the local administrations from Moldova “in order to remove that erroneous perception about Romania and the assistance it grants Moldova," Dorin Chirtoaca added. The two officials discussed ways of interconnecting Moldova's energy system to the Romanian one, about changing the gauge of the railway on the Chisinau-Ungheni portion. “We should be interconnected in many areas, so that in case of a calamity in Russia we should not remain without natural gas or electricity," the Chisinau mayor said. He asked the Romanian Foreign Minister to solve the problem of Romanian citizenship for Moldovans. “So that the two parties ruling in Romania now, PLD and PSD, fulfill the commitments they made during the electoral campaign regarding the Romanian citizenship for Moldovans. This way, our citizens working in the EU will get out of illegality and we'll be able to have natural movement on the Prut's both banks," Dorin Chirtoaca said.