Moldovan foreign minister presented activity report of ministry

Chisinau, August 8 /MOLDPRES/- Obtaining the status of a candidate for accession to the European Union is the most important achievement of the last year, Deputy Prime Minister Nicu Popescu, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration said in the activity report, presented today one year after taking over the mandate.

Last year, efforts were made to place the Republic of Moldova on this firm, irreversible path of joining the European Union. "We all know that our country has had European aspirations for over two decades, and in recent months these aspirations have been recognized by the European Union. We worked on very concrete files, which would bring and already bring benefits for the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, including in the field of liberalization of transport, exports, liberalization of roaming with Romania, strengthening of cooperation in the field of defense and security, with the Ministry of Finance we worked to unlock foreign assistance and to strengthen our state's capabilities to advance and Europeanize our country," said the minister.

He mentioned that another key objective for foreign policy also relates to the interaction with our citizens abroad, with the diaspora. "First of all, we continue to strengthen the legal basis that facilitates the life of our citizens, by signing several types of agreements: social protection, recognition of driving licenses or simplification of the procedures for changing these licenses, or through recognition agreements of study documents. In the last year we managed to sign nine such agreements, with Greece and Spain in the field of social protection, with Lithuania in the field of exchanging licenses, we also obtained the simplification of the driving license procedure with Germany and we also signed agreements on the recognition of educational documents with Romania and Italy", added the official.

The third direction of action concerned economic diplomacy.

"In the next year, we will focus on the implementation of the recommendations of the European Commission, which result from the status of a candidate country for joining the European Union, we will continue to work on improving consular services and strengthening capacities for economic diplomacy", concluded Popescu.

Photo: MAEIE