The official conference launching the negotiations for Moldova’s European Union membership will take place in the evening of June 25 and will be followed by a press conference held by representatives of the current Presidency of the European Council and the European Commission, which will be livestreamed. In Luxembourg, the Moldovan delegation will be headed by Prime Minister Dorin Recean, who has planned meetings with a number of European and Luxembourg officials.
Prime Minister Recean will have meetings with the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Luc Frieden, with the Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, and also with the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Cooperation and Foreign Trade of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel.
The Moldovan prime minister will also meet with Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, and Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine.
The government delegation includes Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Cristina Gherasimov, Deputy Prime Minister/Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihai Popșoi, Deputy Prime Minister/Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization Dumitru Alaiba, Deputy Prime Minister/Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea, Minister of Education and Research Dan Perciun, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spînu, and Government Secretary Artur Mija.
Moldova applied for EU membership in March 2022 and was granted candidate status in June 2022. In April 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution requesting the European Commission and the European Council to start accession negotiations, following the completion of nine recommendations laid out by the European Commission. Recently, the ambassadors of the member countries to the EU agreed, in principle, the negotiation frameworks for the official opening of accession negotiations with Moldova and Ukraine. On June 25, the Belgian Presidency of the European Union will convene the first intergovernmental conferences with Moldova and Ukraine.
