Moldova's EU talks gain a legal start on 21 June 2024
A look back at the decree signed by Maia Sandu that opened the formal process, and a separate dispute on the Germany–Poland border.
What did it mean for Moldova's EU path when its president acted on 21 June 2024? Maia Sandu, Moldova's president, signed the decree that began negotiations on the country's accession to the European Union. She also announced that the first Moldova–EU intergovernmental conference would take place on 25 June.
The decree marked a procedural step: it set the negotiating process in motion and gave a near date for the first formal meeting between Moldova and the EU. The announcement placed Moldova's accession within the wider enlargement agenda, which also covered Ukraine's own prospective accession.
A separate border dispute
Elsewhere in the region, attention in the days before had turned to relations between Germany and Poland. On 17 June 2024, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk ordered Germany to explain a recorded incident in which German police appeared to abandon a migrant family in Osinów Dolny, Poland, just east of the border.
The two items were unrelated, but both showed how EU-linked politics in the region ran on two tracks in mid-June 2024: formal enlargement steps on one side, and friction over border management between member states on the other.
