The European Union will increase financial assistance to Moldova and Ukraine, while envisaging additional funds for this purpose in the EU 2024 budget.
Head of the European Parliament's delegation to the Parliamentary Committee for the EU-Moldova Association, Siegfried Muresan, reported this on his social network page, noting that the European Parliament's Committee on Budget last night voted in favor of a package of amendments to the EU budget for 2024, which, among other things, envisages an increase in financial assistance to Moldova and Ukraine, as candidate states for EU accession and as countries that suffered the most from the war in Ukraine. Siegfried Muresan did not mention the exact amounts of additional EU funding that Moldova and Ukraine will be able to receive. Earlier, he said that the European Parliament might reallocate 600 million euros from the Neighbourhood Instrument for Moldova after the creation of a special Fund for Ukraine in the context of the revision of the EU's Multiannual Financial Framework until 2027. A new fund - a financial instrument worth about 50 billion euros - is planned to be created to support Ukrainian citizens and authorities. The money will be made available to Ukraine in the second half of the current EU Multiannual Financial Framework, i.e. 2024-2027. "Once this special financial instrument is created, the funds initially allocated in the EU budget to support Ukraine in 2024-2027 will become available for other investments. This amount is estimated at around 600 million euros from the EU's Neighborhood Instrument. In the amendment I have tabled to the draft regulation, I ask that this money be made available to EU candidate countries on the edge of the war in Ukraine. At the moment, the only candidate country on the border with Ukraine is Moldova," Siegfried Muresan said. He noted that after Ukraine, Moldova is the country that has suffered the most because of the war. The Moldovan authorities and citizens had to deal with the highest number of Ukrainian refugees per capita compared to all European countries. The MEP said that, at the same time, Moldova is permanently exposed to a hybrid form of aggression by Russia, including campaigns of disinformation and manipulation of the population, the use of gas supplies as a means of blackmail and attempts to destabilize the situation on Moldova's border. Earlier, the EU has already decided to redirect 135 million euros, initially planned for programs with Russia and Belarus, to strengthen cooperation with Moldova and Ukraine. The European Commission adopted this decision, approving the transfer of 135 million euros from the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument, originally planned for Interreg NEXT programs with Russia and Belarus for 2021-2027, to other Interreg programs with Moldova and Ukraine. Siegfried Muresan also said that the EU has mobilized more than 1.2 billion euros in grants and soft loans for Moldova from October 2021 until now. This money was allocated for the most important needs of Moldova and its citizens, such as macro-financial stabilization of the country, measures to support people affected by the rise in energy prices, measures to improve security in the context of security threats caused by the war in Ukraine, as well as for investments in the country's modernization, in infrastructure and in the transition to a green economy, etc. // 03.10.2023 - InfoMarket.
