Via Carpathia and Rail2Sea initiatives should be rethought, so as to include the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, said, on Thursday, the Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development from the Republic of Moldova, Andrei Spînu, on the margin of the 5th edition of the Business Forum of The Three Seas Initiative.
“Moldova has no other exit than to Romania and to the European Union. And from now on I hope that this Initiative (Three Seas Initiative – n. r.), when it proposes and discusses new projects, will necessarily take into account the connection of Moldova and of Ukraine to these initiatives. The minister (Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Sorin Grindeanu – n. r.) mentioned Romania’s initiatives: Rail2Sea and Via Carpathia. These two initiatives must be rethought in such a way that Moldova and Ukraine also appear on their map. the railway from Pașcani we can come to Iasi, Ungheni, Chisinau and we can reach Odesa. On Via Carpathia Romania I know that the 7th highway is also being built that will unite Moldova, the region of Moldova in Romania, but the A7 and the project must to unite in the north, in the center and in the south with the Republic of Moldova. Through these initiatives we can ensure that we can detach ourselves once and for all and connect once and for all with the European Union through Romania. In Chisinau, we are determined this time to go all the way, because politically there have been all kinds of attempts by the proposed forces to destabilize the situation, but now is the time to go all the way to break Moldova from the Soviet and pro-Russian past. Integration into the European Union already I think is mostly done on a value, legislative level. Certainly, there will be permanent work in this regard. But that ring that is categorically missing at this stage is the connection of transport infrastructures and not only, including digital, energy, that’s what this initiative is about,” said Andrei Spînu, according to Agerpres.
He added that, before coming to Bucharest, he analyzed the projects of the Three Seas Initiative and found that in 2016 Moldova and Ukraine were missing.
The Moldovan Minister of Infrastructure emphasized that “his generation is from the period when the Berlin Wall fell, and from February 24, 2022, Putin and Russia are trying to build another wall.”
“Fortunately for Europe, this wall is further east than it was then, and I hope that Moldova and Ukraine will be on the good side of this wall, which I hope will not last very long. And this Initiative can only help us stay there where we believe that geographically, value-wise and from all points of view is the place of the Republic of Moldova, but also of Ukraine. Even though we are a small country, I want to give you just a few figures about our importance. From May 2022 until January 2023, 1.7 million tons of goods transited the Republic of Moldova from Ukraine,” said Spînu.
According to the official, this transit has put enormous pressure on the transport infrastructure of the Republic of Moldova, both on the railway, on the port, and on road transport.
At the same time, Spînu specified that, during the interwar period, there were 27 bridges over the Prut river, but currently there are only four, with two lanes in each direction, and after the start of the war in Ukraine queues appeared stretching for kilometers, and the times of waiting times have risen to 3-4 days between Moldova and Romania.