BERLIN, April 5 – European and international donors on Tuesday agreed to provide 659.5 million in aid to Moldova, Europe’s poorest country which is home to more than 100,000 refugees from Ukraine at a time of rising energy prices euros (718.6 million US dollars).
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after a donors’ conference she hosted in Berlin that Germany would work to help Moldova break free of its energy dependency on Russia.
With a population of less than 3 million, Moldova has hosted more refugees per capita fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine than any other country.
“Today we agreed to support Moldova with loans, budget support and other financial assistance worth 659.5 million euros,” Baerbock said at the end of the conference, which she co-hosted with her French and Romanian counterparts.
Like Ukraine, Moldova is a former part of the Soviet Union, whose territory is partially occupied by Moscow-backed separatists.
Despite having strong historical and linguistic ties with neighboring EU member Romania, it relies solely on Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM) for gas imports.
Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita asked donors at the conference, including the EU and French and Romanian foreign ministers, for support in diversifying her country’s energy supply, including in dealing with vulnerable refugees.
“Since the war began, 400,000 refugees have crossed Moldova’s borders and 100,000 have chosen to stay,” she said. “Almost half of them are children, these are vulnerable populations.”
Moldova’s electricity grid needs to be connected to that of the European Union across the Romanian border to boost its energy independence, she said.
She also called on the EU to lift barriers to selling its agricultural products west, noting that Russia, Belarus and Ukraine accounted for 15% of Moldova’s foreign trade before the war.
“Moldova is the most vulnerable among Ukraine’s neighbors,” she said. “Moldova needs good friends and reliable partners today.”
($1=0.9178 euros)
(This story corrects the headline, paragraphs 1,4 after the Department corrected the figure to 659.5m, not 695m)
Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Edited by Madeline Chambers and David Holmes