(Chisinau) President Emmanuel Macron pleaded on Wednesday for the countries of the European Union to send a “positive and clear signal” to Moldova’s application for EU membership, even if this “path” is accompanied by “conditions”, he recalled in Chisinau.
Posted at 12:25 p.m.
“The answer will be clear but there will be conditions,” Emmanuel Macron said during a press briefing with his Moldovan counterpart Maia Sandu, as France holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union until June 30. .
“I want us to send a positive and clear signal to Moldova. However, I want to keep the conditions to precisely build unanimity, consensus within the European states, he developed in the Moldovan capital.
The French president made the link between this “positive message” that he wants and the geopolitical situation, marked by the war in Ukraine, a neighboring country of Moldova, which has hosted tens of thousands of refugees. “I think that we should not dissociate Moldova from Ukraine in the perspectives that we give,” he argued.
Moldova submitted its candidacy on March 3, a few days after Ukraine and a few hours after Georgia.
“We know that Moldova’s European integration will be a long and complex process, which will require sustained efforts. Let’s be clear, we are not looking for shortcuts in this process. […]. We want to be judged on our merits, ”reacted his counterpart Maia Sandu.
As a “complement” to the process of joining the European Union, Emmanuel Macron once again defended the project of a “European political community” proposed at the beginning of May and which could be “finalized in the shorter term” for responses “in security and defence, energy, infrastructure”.
The Moldovan president reacted positively to this initiative, which was denounced by other leaders as “second-class treatment”.
Emmanuel Macron went to Romania then to Moldova, for this trip entirely devoted to the war in Ukraine, where he could go in stride. It is his first visit to the eastern flank of Europe since the start of the conflict sparked by Moscow on February 24.