Pre-accession funds are not yet available for Moldova. EU Ambassador in Chisinau clarifies
The Republic of Moldova is not yet able to access pre-accession funds from the European Union, Janis Mazeiks, the EU ambassador to Moldova, told Radio Moldova. Instead, according to the official, our country has already received financial support worth more than one billion euros in extended format.
"Pre-accession funds are indeed one of the funding opportunities available to candidate countries, but at the moment they are not available to Moldova. I would like to mention that the Republic of Moldova already has an existing funding framework which has been significantly expanded due to the crises that the country has been facing. As of the 2021 crisis, European Union support for the Republic of Moldova has exceeded EUR 1 billion, which is obviously much more than the traditional volume of support. Therefore, eventually there will be possibilities to access pre-accession funds, but I will not speculate when exactly that time will be,'' said the Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Moldova, Janis Mazeiks.
Earlier, European Parliament (EP) MEP Victor Negrescu called in the Brussels legislature for the start of accession negotiations with the Republic of Moldova and the availability of pre-accession funds for our country.
The Republic of Moldova applied for EU membership in March 2022 and was granted candidate country status in June 2022. The Council will decide on the next steps as soon as the Republic of Moldova meets the conditions set out in the European Commission's opinion on its application for EU membership.
In this context, the Commission has been invited to report to the European Council on the fulfilment of the conditions set out in the opinion as part of its regular enlargement package. The European Council will decide on the next steps once all conditions are fully met.
