​PREMIER FILIP SAYS EUROPEAN COURSE OF MOLDOVA WILL REMAIN UNCHANGED

At the Wednesday’s Government meeting, Prime Minister Pavel Filip categorically rejected any possibility of canceling the EU-Moldova Association Agreement.

Commenting on the statement about the necessity of canceling the Agreement, made by President Igor Dodon within his official visit to Moscow, the Premier said that the Moldovan Government is engaged in implementation of the Agreement and will not stand any intervention in this process.

However, the Premier maintains that since the signing of this document in 2014, Moldova got a considerable financial and advisory assistance from the European Union. According to him, it is about 746 million euros, a part of which arrived for implementing projects on improving living conditions in Moldova.

“If people did not feel this support, it is not the European Union to be blamed, but Moldovan authorities, who failed to properly administrate these funds. Now the situation is different. Yet since the beginning of 2016, the Government has set a goal to develop a number of laws and regulations and adopt them in the shortest terms. By the end of the year, we managed to do this, which led to the unblocking of EU financing”, the Premier reminded.

He also regards as wrong to consider Moldova’s relations with Russia and the EU as trilateral.

“We have a separate agreement with the EU and separate relations with the Russian Federation”, Filip reminded, pointing at a considerable progress in negotiations between Moldovan and Russian Governments in 2016, when an action plan was developed on canceling customs duties on 19 trade items and on exporting goods of several Moldovan enterprises to Russia.

Commenting on Dodon’s statement concerning the rapprochement with the EU-Moldova Association Agreement, the Premier said that it is political and will not have effect without corresponding decisions of the Government and the Parliament.

“I had a good discussion with President Vladimir Putin at the end of 2016. And I was glad that yesterday he said about the necessity of dialog with our Government, given limited powers of the President in the field of external policy”, Filip concluded.