Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib is on a two-day trip to Moldova and Romania, with Moldova hoping Belgium will use its EU Council presidency stint at the start in January 2024 to request Belgium help open Moldova’s path to EU accession.
On Wednesday, Lahbib met with Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Nicu Popescu, discussing “the impact of Russia’s war and Moldova’s path towards EU membership”, qualifying the bilateral relations with Moldova as “thriving”.
In view of the Belgian Council presidency, which will start in January 2024, Chișinău is counting on Belgium’s help in opening EU accession negotiations as well as for further developing its relationship with the bloc.
“Today we expressed our hope that, in the first half of [2024], we will be able to take some firm, concrete steps to get closer to the status of an EU member country,” Popescu said, Radio Free Europa Moldova reported.
Lahbib confirmed Moldova could count on Belgium’s support, but also expertise, for its EU accession, Belga reported. Belgium will notably help Moldova transpose EU legislation into national law. In that view, in October, the country will receive a Moldovan delegation in Brussels.
However, “there can’t be shortcuts,” Lahbib stressed, reminding that “this strict conditionality [mechanism in the EU accession process] is necessary to prevent the EU from weakening and to preserve the Union’s internal legitimacy”.
Moldova applied for EU membership in March 2022, shortly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and was granted candidate status in June 2022.
With its turn at the head of the Council Presidency, Belgium seems keen to forge links with Eastern Partnership countries and EU candidates, a tendency which was notably seen with Lahbib’s peace-brokering mission in the South Caucasus two weeks ago and now with her visit to Moldova.
The opening of embassies and diplomatic corps can be seen as concrete expressions of these diplomatic efforts. During her trip to the South Caucasus, Lahbib inaugurated the Belgian embassy in Yerevan, Armenia, and she inaugurated another one in Chișinău, Moldova, on Wednesday.
These efforts are inextricably linked to the geopolitical context. Announcing the opening of diplomatic corps in the two cities in May, Lahbib said, “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the direct and indirect consequences of this conflict call for increased attention in this region”.
Lahbib also wants to strengthen Belgium’s relations with other member states, such as Romania, where she will be this Thursday to meet with Foreign Minister Luminiţa Odobescu.
(Nina Chabot & Anne-Sophie Gayet | EURACTIV.com)
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