On Monday 24 April, the Council of the EU approved the establishment of a civilian CSDP mission in Moldova - EUMP Moldova - and agreed to a sanctions regime against those who try to destabilise the country.
The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced that the mission, which will have an initial two-year mandate, would be inaugurated “officially, at the next conference on the European Political Community”, scheduled for 1 June in Chisinau.
It will aim to strengthen the resilience of Moldova’s security sector in the areas of crisis management and hybrid threats, including cyber security and countering foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI).
Specifically, the EUMP Moldova will provide strategic level advice on strategy and policy development, and identify capacity building needs in early warning, detection, identification, attribution and response to hybrid threats. It will include a project unit responsible for identifying and implementing projects in the mission’s fields of action.
The High Representative also announced that there was “broad agreement” at the EU Council for a sanctions regime against those who support or implement actions or policies that undermine or threaten democracy, the rule of law, stability or security in Moldova (see EUROPE 13165/3). The scheme should be formally adopted in the coming days, an EU source said.
This framework will initially be empty; however, Romanian Minister Bogdan Aurescu announced that work in cooperation with the Moldovan authorities to list persons/entities to be sanctioned had already started.
In addition, the EU is expected to adopt, in the coming days, a new aid package for Moldova, of €40 million, in the framework of the ‘European Peace Facility’. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)