The present stage of the Moldovan-Ukrainian relations in the perspective of the European integration was focus of a today's meeting between Parliament Speaker Marian Lupu and Ukrainian Ambassador to Moldova Sergey Pirozhkov, according to the legislature's mass media relations department, MOLDPRES reported.
Given that the European integration is both Moldova's and Ukraine's priority, the two officials spoke out for boosting the bilateral political dialogue, as well as the one with the European Union. The new collaboration instrument which regards six states - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine - launched on 3 December 2008, fits in this context. This initiative gives the targeted states new opportunities of economic and social cooperation with the European Union.
Marian Lupu stressed the importance of the parliamentary dimension in the Moldovan-Ukrainian bilateral relations, and the fulfillment of the two countries' European aspirations. Joint meetings of the Moldovan parliament's commission for foreign policy and European integration and the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada's (legislature) committee for external relations is a new form of inter-parliamentary cooperation. So far, two joint meetings have been held - one in Odessa in 2007 and another in Chisinau in 2008.
The sides also welcomed the solid juridical framework aimed at fostering the economic cooperation, as Moldova and Ukraine have signed 195 bilateral agreements, of which 141 ones are in force. In 2008, trade exchanges between the two countries amounted to about 981.8 million dollars.
Marian Lupu and Sergey Pirozhkov also discussed other aspects of the Moldovan-Ukrainian bilateral ties, including the demarcation of the border on the Transnistrian segment with the participation of EU representatives.