One of the advantages of the Association Agreement is closer cooperation with the EU, and thus a larger volume of grant aid. For example, Armenia, which has not signed such an agreement with the EU, receives from the EU half as much financial resources per capita for the development of local projects as Moldova. During the last 15 years Moldova has received from the EU 1 billion Euros in the form of grant aid.

Brussels and the EU countries support both large and small projects and private initiatives. The owner of the canoe club from Varnitsa, Mihai Chitaica, has recently been able to buy, with the help of European funds, an engine for his boat, so that children’s classes in his club be safe.

We transferred his story to a video, which also came out of European funding within the project “EU in Moldova: Perceptions and Reality” implemented by the Berlin Institute for European Politics in partnership with the Institute for Strategic Initiatives of Moldova (IPIS) and the Institute for European Policies and Reforms of Moldova (IPRE) from July 2019 to June 2020 with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office.