OREANDA-NEWS. December 05, 2011. The European Union will provide 57.4 million euros for joint projects between Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. The projects are aimed at improving the infrastructure and cross-border cooperation, constructing a gas pipeline, ensuring protection against floods and assessing pollution sources in the Lower Danube regions.

A press release by the press service of the Romanian embassy in Chisinau said that the projects had been recently approved by the Joint Monitoring Committee, and will be financed within the 2007-2013 Joint Operational Programme Romania-Moldova-Ukraine.

A part of the proceeds are meant for developing cooperation in the energy sector. The biggest approved project provides for the construction of a gas pipeline Iasi-Ungheni (Romania-Moldova), for which 20.27 million euros was allocated. A project implying a feasibility survey for a simultaneous inter-connection of the Moldovan and Ukrainian energy systems to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO), worth about seven million euros, will also be carried out in the energy sector. Another three million euros is meant for upgrading the cross-border cooperation between Romania and Moldova in terms of oil and food products, and a project amounting to over 5 million euros was okayed to develop the cross-border infrastructure.

At the same time, the three countries will implement another three joint projects on the assessment and treatment of anthropogenic pollution sources in the Lower Danube regions, protection against floods in the higher Siret and Prut rivers and improvement of the SMURD emergency and reanimation medical services. The projects' value stands at about 22 million euros.

The projects will be carried out during 24 to 36 months. The three states that participate in their implementation will co-finance an average of 20 per cent of the projects' value.