FARMERS – The European Commission on Friday adopted a financial assistance package worth 241 mln EUR addressing Romanian farmers in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The aid will be disbursed until June 30 as direct grants and will not exceed 280 thousand EUR for each beneficiary. The measure addresses Romanian farmers, in particular those who grow winter grain and rapeseed and who risk going insolvent due to the difficulties the grain market is experiencing as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The measure is necessary, adequate and proportional to remedy a serious disruption of the Romanian economy, the European Commission argues. Romania was also allotted 34 mln EUR from the EU Solidarity Fund to compensate damages incurred after the 2022 drought. The funds were wired in December 2023, and Romania must implement this aid over the next year and a half.
MOLDOVA – Moldovan authorities have started examining the degree of compliance of national legislation with regard to EU law. The first field under scrutiny will be the judiciary, the deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Cristina Gherasimov has said. The Moldovan official believes the next four months will consist of an evaluation of the EU legislation concerning other chapters as well. According to experts, the European Integration Office must be rendered operational as soon as possible in order to effectively interact with institutions in Brussels and speed up the accession process. We recall the Republic of Moldova applied for EU accession in March 2022 and was given EU candidate status in June 2022. In December 2023, EU leaders decided to officially launch EU accession talks with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.
