Ukraine and Moldova discuss expectations and plans for the next stage of EU accession negotiations

On Monday, 15 July, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna held consultations with the Moldovan delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Cristina Gerasimov, who arrived on a working visit to Kyiv.

The Moldovan side was represented by advisers to the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as the Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Parliament of Moldova, Ina Coșeru, and a member of the Committee on National Security and Co-Chair of the Friendship Group, Oazu Nantoi. The Ukrainian side was represented by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yevhen Perebyinis, Director General of the Government Office for Coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Oleksandr Ilkov, and advisers to the Deputy Prime Minister on sectoral issues.

“Thank you for taking the time to visit Kyiv. This is an important and timely discussion for both of our countries, given the intergovernmental conferences held in June in Luxembourg, where Ukraine and Moldova launched negotiations on accession to the European Union. It is now important to plan and coordinate our next steps. Both of our countries bear a huge responsibility for maintaining the high dynamics of the EU enlargement process; we understand how important it is for our countries to keep up the pace of internal transformations and the process of adapting national legislation to EU law. There is a lot of work to be done, both in Brussels and in our capitals,” said Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna, noting that both countries set ambitious goals and timetables for the process.

For her part, the Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova congratulated Ukraine on its achievements on the path to European integration and expressed support and solidarity with the Ukrainian people in the face of the ongoing full-scale war.

Last week, Ukraine and Moldova held their first bilateral meetings within the framework of the European Commission’s screening process, dedicated to the negotiating Chapter 5, Public Procurement.

The parties discussed the format and approaches to the preparation of bilateral meetings, shared their experience in building the architecture of the negotiation process and adopting legislation. In particular, they paid special attention to the process of forming and operating negotiating groups, involving representatives of civil society, business, and parliamentarians in the process.

“Ukraine has a very serious administrative capacity that we have been building throughout the war. Our teams are ready to work, the Parliament is waiting and ready to implement the European integration agenda. In addition, as part of the EU accession process, we have the EU’s financial instrument for Ukraine, the Ukraine Facility, and a decision to use the profits from frozen russian assets for the benefit of Ukraine. All of these processes ensure Ukraine’s financial stability, but they also require internal transformations to increase resilience and lay the foundation for development. And the European integration process is the key to solving this problem. Therefore, it is very important that we move dynamically, and we are able to do so,” Olha Stefanishyna said.

A separate issue was the exchange of experience and development of cooperation with other countries of the EU enlargement package – the Western Balkans.

Deputy Prime Minister Cristina Gerasimov supported the importance of developing further cooperation at the technical level between the candidate countries. She noted that this week, Chişinău would host sessions on the exchange of experience and expertise with the participation of the Western Balkan countries.

The participants agreed to work together to develop initiatives to build contacts between the candidate countries to join forces for the mutual benefit of the common goal of EU accession.