OREANDA-NEWS. August 01, 2014. Austria’s parliament will speed up the ratification of the EU – Moldova Association Agreement. Austrian Second President of National Council Karlheinz Kopf made statements to this effect at a today meeting with Moldovan Parliament Speaker Igor Corman, the parliament’s communication and public relations department has reported.

Corman thanked the Austrian authorities for the support provided to Moldova in getting closer to EU, especially the liberalisation of the visa regime and signing the Association Agreement. Corman stressed that the urgent ratification of the Association Agreement by the Austrian parliament would be a strong signal of solidarity with Moldova. Corman said that, so far, 5 states had ratified the document, namely Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria.

The officials also approached the boosting-up of economic ties between Moldova and Austria. Corman urged representatives of the Austrian business environment to invest in the Moldovan economy, emphasising that there were unexplored potential and areas, which would be interesting to the Austrian entrepreneurial community. At the same time, Corman thanked the Austrian donors for the support provided to Moldova within different technical assistance and development projects and praised the decision of the Austrian Development Agency to keep Moldova on the list of priority states to be provided with assistance. So far, 22 projects, in such areas as: good governance, institutional capacity building, vocational education, drinking water supply, etc., in amount of about 19 million euros have been implemented in Moldova, via the Austrian Development Agency.

Karlheinz Kopf assured that Austria’s parliament would not only include on its autumn agenda the ratification of the Moldova-EU Association Agreement, but would also convince other EU member states to priority ratify the above-mentioned accord. Kopf encouraged the further continuing of reforms, in order to get Moldova closer to EU.