New organizational and operational framework for foreign ministry: Romania Relations Service and Cyber Diplomacy Service to be created

Romania Relations Service and Cyber Diplomacy Service will be created within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A draft decision providing for this was approved today by the Government.

The adoption of the decision comes in the context of the constant increase in the volume of activity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, driven by the progress of the Republic of Moldova’s accession process to the European Union, the intensification of external cooperation, and the expansion of the number of international treaties and consular cases handled.

"If we refer to the Romania Relations Service, until now the country officer, who is the key person in relations not only with Romania but also with other states of the world, has been covering six or seven states. In the case of Romania, ideally, as in the case of other states with which we have very close relations, it is absolutely necessary to have this unit, a service dedicated to relations with Romania, so that an officer for Romania no longer has five or six other countries to be responsible for, but can focus solely on the relationship between the Republic of Moldova and Romania," Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihai Popșoi said.

At the same time, the document provides for increasing the ministry’s staff by 35 positions, in the context of a more than 20% rise in workload over the last year.

"These positions and the allocated budget will not be filled immediately. These positions will be filled gradually over the coming years, and a good part of them will remain vacant, given the specific nature of the MFA’s activity and the need to have these vacant positions for the proper organization of annual and semi-annual rotations. In an increasingly unstable geopolitical context, in a hyper-competitive world, the best investment is in peace and cooperation, in other words in diplomacy," Popșoi stressed.

Another provision of the draft concerns the reorganization of the Economic Diplomacy Directorate, in line with the best practices of foreign ministries in the member states of the European Union.

The new measures aim to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the context of achieving the strategic objectives of the Republic of Moldova.

According to MFA data, over the last year the institution’s activity has shown a constant increase, determined by the progress of the European integration process, the intensification of external cooperation and the increased volume of international treaties and consular files managed. At the same time, the broader participation of the Republic of Moldova in multilateral platforms such as the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and NATO has generated an accelerated pace of diplomatic activities and responsibilities. In 2021 alone, the MFA handled almost 100 visits by foreign dignitaries to the Republic of Moldova and supported the preparation of almost 250 visits by Moldovan officials abroad, as well as the organization of major international events.