EU AMBASSADOR REFUTES MEDIA INFORMATION ABOUT CANCELLING OF VISA-FREE REGIME FOR MOLDOVANS

Ambassador Peter Michalko, Head of the European Union Delegation to Moldova said to journalists on Friday that all the information in the media about the alleged canceling of visa-free regime for Moldovan citizens is wrong.

“I personally heard nothing about such initiatives. I hope that Moldovan citizens are enjoying this great possibility to travel to EU countries without visas. This does exist and no changes have been made to this possibility. This is what I heard from all Moldova’s political partners, who support this European Union decision about the liberalization of visa regime for Moldovans”, Michalko said, stressing that nobody has ever talked about the suspension of visa-free regime.

As Infotag has already reported, at the end of 2017 the European Commission published a report on the mechanism of canceling the visa-free regime for Balkan countries and Eastern Partnership member countries. The report included some critical comments about Moldova and Ukraine. This became a pretext for some political forces and media in Moldova to state that the European Union does not exclude the possibility of cancelling visa-free regime for these countries. According to them, this may happen due to multiple violations of conditions of stay in EU countries, absence of reforms and high level of corruption in Moldova and Ukraine.

These statements have already been refuted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, which recognized there are violations, but these are not so serious to lead to canceling of the regime of visa-free traveling to the EU.