​DIRK SCHUEBEL REAFFIRMS TIMEFRAMES FOR VISA LIBERALIZATION AND ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT SIGNING

The Dirk Schuebel, Head of the Eastern Partnership Bilateral Division in the European External Action Service (EEAS), has confirmed the timeframes announced by the European Union at the end of 2013 for visa liberalization and for Association Agreement signature.

Dirk Schuebel, who is the previous Head of the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Moldova, stated in his interview with Infotag that Moldova citizens will receive the right to travel to European Union countries before the summer of 2014, and that the initialed Association Agreement with the European Union will be signed before the end of September 2014.

The diplomat expressed surprise about the information, distributed by some mass media – with reference to Dirk Schuebel – that the European Union had allegedly extended those timeframes.

“I have never said this. We are working with the Moldovan government according to an agreed-on agenda, and everything is going on according to it. We have completed the negotiations on the Association Agreement, and are now discussing the RM-EU Association Agenda. Last week, consultations were held in Chisinau, and we will meet again in Brussels at the end of February. The work is advancing very fruitfully”, stressed Dirk Schuebel.

As already reported by Infotag, the building of a law-governed state in Moldova, the judiciary reform, struggle against corruption, and freedom of expression have been determined as priority issues in Moldova’s cooperation with the European Union within the Association Agenda. And cooperation in the fields of foreign policy and security will be aimed at preventing regional conflicts and at handling crisis situations. At the first round of consultations held in church last Thursday, a particular attention was attached to questions of justice, freedoms and security, in particular personal data protection, migration and asylum, police reform, struggle against organized crime, border management.

Also, the parties determined economic cooperation tasks. They negotiated the support, which the European Union is going to furnish to Moldova to help create an effective market economy through gradual harmonization of the national legislation with the European one, to strengthen the republic’s market economy stability, a reliable financial system and a sustainable payment balance, said the foreign ministry’s press release.

At the Chisinau round of consultations, the parties on the whole approved the text of the Association Agenda. This work is to be completed at the next round of consultations in Brussels scheduled for the end of February.