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Moldova has a strategic interest in the AGRI project

23 September 2011 14:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementyeva - APA-Economics. The Republic of Moldova has a strategic interest in the AGRI project due to bring natural gas from Azerbaijan via Georgia to Romania, Moldova prime minister said in an interview with HotNews.ro. He also said that early elections would be catastrophic for his country, 5+2 negotiations over Transdniester and dismissed the possibility to bring the communists in the Moldovan government.

Asked whether there was a possibility for the Republic of Moldova to be linked to the interconnecting project AGRI, as talks were held recently over Ukraine’s being connected to the future project, Filat said he had discussed the issue repeatedly and he was about to discuss it again with Romanian President Traian Basescu on Thursday. He said Moldova had a strategic interest in the project and that Moldova authorities were looking into the possibility to join it.

Filat said that depending on a single source of natural gas supplies or electricity leads to serious issues including the energy security of the country. He said two projects to inter-connect the natural gas networks of Romania and Moldova and of energy networks should be worked on fast, so that they become operational by mid-2013.

On Moldova’s lack of a president, he said he trusted the country would find one because "I strongly believe we have enough reason in the Parliament not to push the Republic of Moldova into early elections, which would be catastrophic". But he dismissed speculation that he would bring the communists into a governing coalition as a means to reach a deal over a new president. "We removed the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova from the government not through statements, but through day-to-day action. I can’t, any way you look at it, to bring the communists into the government", he said.

He also said publicly for the first time in the Thursday interview with HotNews.ro that a 5+2 formula to launch official negotiations on Transniester, which stopped in 2006, had been agreed in Moscow on Thursday morning. A round of informal consultations on Transdniester were held in Moscow that morning, where an agreement was reached to restart negotiations with the participation of the Republic of Moldova, Russia, Transdniester, Ukraine and the OSCE along with the EU and the US.