EC Publishes Second Report on Moldova’s Application for EU Accession

The second part of the European Commission’s Opinion on Moldova’s application for accession to the European Union has been published, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Nicu Popescu has said. The minister said the analytical report assesses the situation in 33 chapters of the EU acquis and supplements the first part of the Opinion, which was published on June 17, 2022, assessing the political and economic criteria for accession, radiomoldova.md reported. The document analyses the level of readiness of Moldova in terms of standards presented to the EU member states, assessing the situation in line with the evaluation system of the European Commission. According to the report, Moldova is at early stage of preparation in 12 regions, at some level of preparation in 17 regions, and moderately prepared in 3 regions. The analytical report reflects the situation as of June 2022. The progress made since then will be reflected in the EU enlargement policy report to be published in autumn 2023. "We will adjust our plans for the 33 chapters of the acquis in line with the European Commission’s analytical report published on 2 February 2023. Together with all our colleagues in government, we have already outlined many of the relevant objectives in this year’s draft Government Action Plan. Together we started the accession to the European Union and together we will be successful in Moldova’s accession to the EU! – Minister Nicu Popescu said. We recall that the European Commission issued an opinion on Moldova’s accession application on June 17, 2022, recommending the EU Council to grant Moldova the status of candidate, provided that steps are taken in several fields. On June 23, 2022, the Council of Europe recognized Moldova’s European prospect and issued a decision on granting the status of candidate country for EU accession. To this end, the European Commission was requested to report to the European Council on the fulfilment of the conditions set out in the conclusions of June 17 2022 as part of the next enlargement package. The European Council will decide on further steps once all the conditions have been fully met.