MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. Moldova’s former President Igor Dodon said on Tuesday that he doesn’t think that his country will be admitted to the European Union and that is why Chisinau should cooperate with Moscow.
"I think we should be friends with everyone. It is important for us to develop strategic partnership with Russia, we must strengthen our neutrality. <…> As for me, I don’t believe that Moldova will be a member of the European Union. We see that there are too many problems there and the fact that Moldova has been granted a candidate [for EU member] status, we understand that this status was granted because of the situation in Ukraine. <…> But we know that there are a lot of countries, which has been staying in this status for decades and no one is going to admit them," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.
On June 23, 2022, EU heads of states and governments made a decision to grant EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.
The candidate status is step one on the path toward EU membership. Candidates are supposed to meet a number of requirements, including reforms, to begin talks on the admission to the EU. The first meeting of Moldova’s commission on the European integration was held in October 2022. It was acknowledged back then that the authorities were unable to implement more than 35 conditions set by the EU last year in due time.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on January 12 that her country fulfilled less than a half of the plan’s 35 provisions.