Bucharest-Chishinau, a relation for Europe

Less than a month before ending his term in office, the President of the Republic of Moldova, Nicolae Timofti, on Wednesday paid a visit to neighbouring Romania. Bucharest reiterated its support for Chishinau, to continue on its European path.

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România Internațional, 18.02.2016, 14:12

Romania further supports the Republic of Moldova, a former Soviet country with a predominantly Romanian speaking population, in the process of reforming the state and on its way to EU accession, Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis has told a press conference, given jointly with his Moldovan counterpart, Nicolae Timofti. Klaus Iohannis has underlined that President Timofti’s visit to Bucharest comes at a difficult moment for the neighbouring Republic of Moldova, when the new government is facing many challenges and the country’s president completes his term in office. Iohannis has also said that the Republic of Moldova could count on Bucharest’s support, also at financial level. He has made it clear that, until the disbursement of the first instalment of the 150 million Euro non-reimbursable loan offered by Romania to the Republic of Moldova, Bucharest will grant humanitarian aid to the Moldovan citizens.

Klaus Iohannis: “The Republic of Moldova has a new government and we are waiting to see it taking the first concrete steps towards reforming the country, in order to start disbursing the first instalment. We don’t know if this process takes one, three or six months, so we have decided to grant humanitarian aid to Moldova, to support the people living there.”

Iohannis has underlined that some of the requested conditions have already been met and added that his Moldovan counterpart assured him of the Moldovan Parliament’s readiness to support the new Government, in an effort to comply with the other requirements, too. Romania has conditioned the unblocking of the loan promised to Moldova on the urgent adoption of a series of measures meant to reform the judiciary and the banking system, as well as on establishing a roadmap to sign a new agreement with the IMF as soon as possible. In recent times, the Republic of Moldova has been rocked by protests and political instability, after one billion dollars vanished from three banks based in the country, which led to the suspension of international financial aid. Nicolae Timofti says European integration is instrumental to the country’s development and added that it is very important for the Republic of Moldova that capital investments be made by a trustworthy partner like Romania. In his opinion, the constant and valuable support granted by Bucharest to Chishinau in many domains is undeniably important.

Nicolae Timofti: ”I’d like Romania to further participate, as we have previously established, in the development of our energy market, enabling us to get out of ‘the area of vulnerability’. There are political, geopolitical and economic risks that we have taken into consideration in our talks, and avoiding them would place Moldova in a European area of stability”.

According to President Timofti, the economic and political crisis the Republic of Moldova has been facing hasn’t impacted its cooperation ties with Romania. On the contrary, difficulties have brought the two neighbouring states closer together.

(Translated by Diana Vijeu)