Popescu on EU Report: This Is an Internal Doc, Not Officially Published

A new report of the European Commission measuring compliance with European legislation indicates that Moldova has many debts in various fields. The Europa Libera portal has analyzed the EU draft report, which shows that our country has worse results than Ukraine and Georgia in terms of the application of European law, agora.md reports. Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu stresses that the report has not yet been published and that it is based on the May responses to a questionnaire sent by the EU authorities. “The European Commission report debated in the press is currently an internal document and will be officially published later in January. This document is based on the May responses to a questionnaire sent by EU authorities, and the reported administrative flaws are well known to the public and are related to the slow progress of European integration registered by previous governments,” Nicu Popescu said. “It is important to note that the European Commission representatives urged the EU Council to grant our country the candidate country status, which clearly demonstrates the progress already made by the current government in the field of European integration,” the Foreign Minister said. The first part of the European Commission’s opinion was published on June 17, 2022 and consists of two chapters - the political criterion and the economic criterion. The second part - the analytical report, which will be published soon, reflects and analyzes the level of compliance of our country’s legislation with EU laws, procedures and mechanisms of EU policy implementation. Much attention is also paid to the administrative and institutional capacity, the level of cooperation of our country with the European Union. In the fall of 2023, the European Commission will also publish an “enlarged package” featuring a report on Moldova’s progress on the EU accession path.