H.E. Mrs. Larisa Miculet:

At the outset, I ask the Vice Chairman and members to allow me to express deep gratitude for the opportunity to address and brief this respectable committee on Moldova's application for membership of the European Union.

As this is the first official appearance of the ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to the Oireachtas with my team since the opening of the embassy in Dublin 2019, before moving on to the topic of today’s discussion, please allow me to state the following.

Diplomatic relations between our countries - we will mark the 23rd anniversary in September 2022 - are strong and are based on mutual values and support. The opening of the embassy by my government shows a significant interest in promoting further our bilateral ties between the two states, strengthening friendship and diversifying our co-operation. I welcome also the recent establishment of the Ireland-Moldova Parliamentary Friendship Group, which will serve as a valuable vehicle in developing stronger ties between our Legislatures. Although Senator Horkan is missing at this moment, I want to deeply thank him for accepting the role of convener. One can see that it could not be more timely to have this parliamentary friendship group.

Today’s discussion is of tremendous importance for my country and unfortunately is taking place in a very complicated context of regional security. The leadership of my country, the Republic of Moldova, has strongly condemned the Russia's military aggression against the sovereign country of Ukraine and stated that Moldova fully respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence within its internationally recognised borders.

The Republic of Moldova immediately turned its solidarity into concrete actions, where it has a greater impact, in helping refugees. I hope that later, in answering the committee members' questions, I will be able to elaborate a little bit more on this very important topic for us and I would be very glad to share with the committee how proud I am of the Moldovan people who opened their houses on the first day of the conflict. On the first day of this aggression, more than 5,000 people entered the Republic of Moldova and by the end of the day, these were hosted in Moldovan houses in different places in very dignified conditions. I hope to have another chance to talk about this later.

Despite the regional and very complicated situation, the Government strongly follows its goal of EU integration and has reiterated its firm commitment to continue the reform process, to fight corruption, to reform the judiciary, to develop the infrastructure and to strengthen democracy. We have high-level visitors every day to our country, including by ministers from the EU and from the US. The Ministers, the President and the Head of the Government have stressed this point.

We are working now on two important fronts. We are helping with this conflict and at the same time we are following our agenda because for 30 years our main goal has been to gain membership of the EU. It is a long and difficult road but we have never stepped back and are going ahead in a different situation now.

Therefore, on 3 March 2022, the Republic of Moldova submitted the letter of application to join the EU. This was a major step forward on our European journey, a journey that was not always easy and smooth, but with a very clear destination: EU membership. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration and Deputy Prime Minister, Nicu Popescu, said that the next generation of young Moldovans will be very proud of this day when the decision was taken by our leadership.

Today, after 30 years of independence, during which we experienced many steps back, we have achieved important successes and learned the hard lessons. The Republic of Moldova is ready to take the opportunity and responsibility for a prosperous and peaceful future in the European family.

There are two dimensions I want to bring to the committee's attention today as to why we did that on 3 March. The first one relates to our fundamentals. Moldova declared firmly its European choice as the only way to ensure the development and prosperity of the country. There is no other way and only one way ahead for us. Our European ambitions are strongly rooted into our common history and culture. More than that, we speak a European language already and share common values and principles with EU member states. Moldova is at the border of the EU, is part of Europe by virtue of its geographical position and location, and, by definition, we are Europeans. Our future is destined to be European.

We are undergoing a transformation process aimed towards irreversible changes in our society, economy, and governance. We remain focused on consolidating democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as indispensable elements lying at the heart of EU political and economic integration.

Starting from 2014, the EU-Moldova Association Agreement stands at the core of our bilateral dialogue and is a valuable guide of our reform agenda. We continue to make progress on transposing and implementing European standards into national legislation and working towards true transformation in a broad spectrum of areas of common interest.

Over the years, together with our European partners, we have achieved notable successes on our European path. The implementation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area resulted in an increase in the number and volume of trade transforming the EU into the most important trading partner of Moldova. More than 60% of our exported goods go to the EU market and over 40% of imports to our country are sourced in the EU.

The second dimension of our important step towards approaching EU lies in the current regional context. There are many risks for my country. The Russian invasion of neighbouring Ukraine and the continuing military conflict created a new political and security environment in the region and, let us say, in the whole world.

There are important decisions that must be taken quickly and decisively, especially now when all of us are confronted with a changing landscape in the world. Our EU membership application is one of those examples where one has to be decisive and make quick decisions.

The current dramatic circumstances forced us to accelerate these important steps that inevitably would have been taken in the future. We consider now to be the appropriate time to match our strong ambitions with concrete actions. We understand that our decision may have taken European countries, including Ireland, by surprise but I assure the committee that all partners that work with Moldova know how strong our commitment is and how hard we worked to move ahead quickly.

Following this important decision, we are fully aware that we need to move fast by decisively executing internal reforms, proactively implementing reforms in good governance, anti-corruption, rule of law and other areas in which we know we have some weaknesses. We are working on those areas.

At the same time, I wish to stress it is obvious under these very difficult circumstances that old formats of co-operation with the EU might not prove as efficient as they did. We sense that is true. We now need approaches centred around a concrete and credible membership perspective for aspiring countries. This should also materialise in more robust programmes and initiatives aimed to bring Moldova closer to the EU. We are ready and determined to identify new avenues to deepen our relationship with the EU.

As an immediate priority we look forward to scaling up the integration efforts in the following directions, the first of which relates to trade. The EU is the main commercial partner of the Republic of Moldova. That is already the case. The implementation of the deep and comprehensive free trade areas, DCFTA, agreement has triggered a profound transformation of the economy and the way of thinking and functioning in terms of the quality of goods, competitiveness and management. We have already learned the requirements of the EU. We are passing this chapter.

For Moldova, the economic implications of the current military conflict in Ukraine are expected to result in disrupted supply and value chains with and through Ukraine. We are feeling that already. It is happening in other ways too but is mainly related to Ukraine. We cannot make estimations. At the moment, we can only anticipate that there will be many other implications. We must take decisions about where to go and what are the correct things to do. We are considering those matters. We had to identify immediate measures to reorientate the commercial flows and transport routes. However, in the longer run, we will need to do more together to ensure the economic and financial stability of the country.

Transport is another area in which we are ready to work more closely and deeply with the EU. We continue to focus on the implementation of the trans-European transport network, TEN-T, that will enable greater transport connectivity with the EU. The development of strategic and priority transport corridors will lay the way forward to progressive integration of Moldova into the EU market.

Energy is a topic of great importance to us. We are still in the energy crisis that has followed decisions that have been made and of which the committee is aware. Strengthening energy resilience is one of the key elements of co-operation with our external partners. This is an existential issue for us. Our efforts are currently channelled towards two priority dimensions, namely, gas and electricity interconnection with the EU and the diversification of supply. We hope for an accelerated process of full synchronisation of Ukraine and Moldova with the EU electricity system. This is urgent. At the same time, we continue to work closely with our partners to overcome the challenges posed by the gas crisis and reduce dependency on a single source of supply. That is the reality for Moldova now. We have only one source of energy supply.

Security is another element. The current military conflict has highlighted the importance of the security dimension. In the current circumstances, our priority to raise to a new level the security and defence co-operation with the EU is even more stringent. We look forward to launching the high-level political and security dialogue with the EU that was agreed at the Association Council in late October 2021. We seek the EU's support in promoting security sector reform and deeper co-operation on hybrid threats, strategic communications, cybersecurity and information sharing. We welcome the assistance offered through the new European peace facility instrument which, in 2021, was directed towards strengthening the capabilities of our military medical facilities and engineering corps, and we look forward to enhancing this co-operation in future.

I reiterate that we are all facing a totally new reality, which makes us even more determined and convinced of the need to develop new ways to support reforms and ensure the development of countries in the eastern neighbourhood that aspire to become fully integrated into the EU. Moldova’s firm choice is a European one and it is directed towards becoming part of the big European family. In this context, I kindly ask for the humble support of the committee and Irish society in general in our determination to advance on the path of EU membership. I thank committee members for their attention and I am ready to answer their questions about Moldova. It was timely of the Moldovan Government to open an embassy in Ireland, which has allowed us the chance to interact with the committee members, to discuss the concerns of Moldova and to bring to the attention of the committee the concerns of my small country. We hope for the support of Ireland in the future.