Kazys Starkevičius, Minister of Agriculture, visits Moldova, which has chosen Lithuania as a partner to help it on its path to Euro integration.

October is a very important time for Moldova, which no longer wants to dwell on the past. On 20 October, presidential elections and a referendum on accession to the European Union will take place here.

At the invitation of the Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry of Moldova, Vladimir Bolea, the Lithuanian Minister of Agriculture, together with his counterparts from Latvia, Estonia and Romania, has come to support, encourage, share experiences and contribute to the debate on the development of agriculture in Moldova. The EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, also visited Moldova.

The biggest challenge for Moldova at the moment is how to prepare for the ratification of EU regulations and other necessary documents, i.e. their adaptation to the national legal framework, in the absence of qualified specialists.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry held meetings with specialists from the departments preparing the various EU accession documents. Experiences in mobilising staff for EU accession were shared, and the possibilities of obtaining and using pre-accession support were discussed.

During the visit, Ministers and the EU Commissioner also held discussions with entrepreneurs and farmers. They focused on what mistakes should not be repeated and stressed that the land is the most important place to start. The Moldovans were interested in how the country's agricultural sector has changed since EU accession, how ministries interact with farmers, how EU farmers' subsidies depend on them, how to partner with EU farmers and processors, etc.

The meeting pointed out that the EU accession process is not a quick and easy one, and requires responsible preparation, but the first step is to vote in favour of EU accession in the referendum.

During his visit to Moldova, an informal meeting was also held between the President of the Moldovan Parliament, Igor Gros, and Minister Starkevičius, during which the general state of preparations for EU accession was discussed, as well as the public mood.

At the same time as the visit of the EU Commissioner for Agriculture to Moldova, a separate bilateral meeting was also held between Minister Starkevičius and EU Commissioner Wojciechowski. The main topic was the simplification of the procedures for the implementation and amendment of the CAP Strategic Plans. It was stressed that the modification of the strategic plans would be more flexible and that technical elements such as haying or sowing dates would be left to the Member States or could be easily changed. The strategic plan should define only the strategic elements and not the detailed technical requirements.

Minister Starkevičius, pointing out that the amendments to the Lithuanian CAP strategic plan were submitted to the EU Commission on 18 September, not only mentioned the most important examples of amendments, but also asked for the amendments to be evaluated and approved as soon as possible.