Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Chuque said that after the commissioning of the Greece-Bulgaria interconnector on Thursday, his country will be able to supply natural gas to Moldova and Ukraine, European Pravda reports with reference to the Romanian news portal Digi24.
“Essentially, this interconnector will connect the network passing through Anatolia and the Adriatic, as well as connect to the BRUA pipeline, thus ensuring gas supplies to Bulgaria and Romania,” Chuquet said at a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“And, of course, we can provide gas supplies to our eastern partners – Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova and other countries according to the distribution scheme of this gas network,” the Romanian prime minister added.
COMMISSIONING, GAS, GREECE-BULGARIA, INTERCONNECTOR, MOLDOVA, ROMANIA, UKRAINE
Moldova is ready to continue providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine and to accept more refugees from Ukraine, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said.
“The Moldovan government has also provided humanitarian aid in Vinnytsia, Odesa, Chernivtsi and Mykolaiv regions to cover all the growing needs of the people who live there, and we are ready to continue to provide this assistance,” Sandu said at a press conference following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday.
Sandu pointed out that about 500,000 people from Ukraine went to Moldova after Russia’s large-scale aggression. According to her, there are still 73,000 refugees from Ukraine in Moldova, 42,000 of whom are children.
“I confirmed our readiness to provide them with all the necessary support and accept more people if necessary,” Sandu assured.
Ukraine and Moldova are planning to resume rail traffic for freight traffic on the Berezino-Bessarabskaya section in autumn 2022.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development of the Republic of Moldova and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine on the development of railway communication was signed on June 23, 2022, according to the website of the Moldovan Ministry.
The document was signed by Vice Prime Minister of Moldova Andrei Spinu and Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Alexander Kubrakov.
“Thus, the Republic of Moldova will be able to export / import goods through the port of Izmail, located on the Danube, reducing congestion in the port of Reni. At the same time, through this section of the railway line, Ukraine will be able to export goods to the Republic of Moldova and to the EU countries” , – indicated in the message.
The Berezino-Basarabskaya railway section on the territory of Ukraine was dismantled in 1997, and in 1999 the section between the stations “Rotovo” and “Raukhovka” on the aforementioned line bypassing Odessa was closed.
The construction of the site is expected to be carried out for approximately 23 km. Of these, 1.2 km of the railway will be built on the territory of the Republic of Moldova.
FREIGHT TRAFFIC, MOLDOVA, RAILWAY COMMUNICATION, UKRAINE, БЕРЕЗИНО-БЕССАРАБСКАЯ
French President Emmanuel Macron said that granting the status of EU candidate countries to Ukraine and Moldova is a political signal in these circumstances, the entry itself will drag on for years.
“With regard to Moldova and Ukraine, it is quite clear that this (the decision of the European Candidates’ Status Council) is contextual. Yes, this is a political signal. I fully recognize this. And I said quite frankly today that it will take time (… ) that it will last for years,” Macron said Thursday evening at a press conference in Brussels after the decision of the European Council to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.
According to him, this decision is justified by the fact that we are talking about the neighboring environment of the European Union, which needs to be stabilized. Today, the “geopolitical response” in the context of hostilities is to provide such a perspective to these countries, the French president believes.
“Is this a good geopolitical prospect in the long run? I will answer you sincerely (…): no,” Macron continued, referring to the “fatigue phenomenon” of joining the European Union, which is a complex and time-consuming process. “The road is long,” he said.
That is why, the president explained, he proposed the initiative of the “European political community”, which he considers the right answer, in order to “stabilize the neighborhood” of the EU, offering close cooperation to European countries that are not members of the European Union, having different standards and situations, but sharing common values. .
And this is just being discussed at this EU summit, Macron said. “We need to build something: we can cooperate in terms of defense, geopolitics, energy, infrastructure, projects for the movement of people – a lot of specific things that will make it possible to change the lives of citizens (…) and build the wider geopolitical Europe that we need” – said the head of the French state.
But at the moment, Macron believes, “after NATO said “no” to Ukraine’s accession for good reasons, we would make a political mistake and leave a void if we didn’t reach out to Ukraine and Moldova.” And this justifies the recognition of the status of candidates for these two countries, the French president explained.
Ukraine plans to develop the Open Border project at border crossings with Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.
“We are also implementing similar projects to increase capacity at the borders with other Western neighbors. We are already negotiating to join the Open Border of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova,” Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov was quoted as saying in a Facebook post on Monday.
As reported earlier, Ukraine and Poland doubled the throughput at the Krakovets-Korcheva checkpoint modernized as part of the Open Border project.
The temporary suspension of exports of wheat, flour and sugar will ensure Moldova’s food security until the next harvest, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Viorel Gerciu said Thursday in parliament.
The minister did not predict the price of bread in autumn, but said that this year’s wheat harvest will be less than last year’s (900,000 tons instead of 1.7 million tons). But even this will be enough to cover domestic demand, which is estimated at 660,000 tons per year.
Referring to the supply of fertilizers in Moldova, disrupted due to hostilities in Ukraine, the minister said that the country consumes 270,000 tons of fertilizers annually. Until the end of February, the cost of this volume of fertilizers was estimated at $80 million, but now the price has risen to $220 million. “129,000 tons of fertilizers have already been imported to Moldova this year, which is enough to meet the needs of agricultural producers today,” Gerciu added.
