Moldova strikes 30 million-euro deal with France to enhance energy efficiency

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PARIS (Reuters) -Moldova and the French Development Agency signed a 30 million-euro ($32.5 million) deal on Monday to improve the post-Soviet state’s energy efficiency, President Maia Sandu said after meeting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

The agreement with the Agence Francaise de Developpement will help to “reduce energy waste, lower costs and strengthen our energy independence,” Sandu told a joint news conference.

Moldova’s pro-European government has accused Russia of artificially creating an energy crisis to destabilise the country ahead of parliamentary elections after Russian producer Gazprom suspended gas exports to a separatist region of Transdniestria.

Russia has blamed the crisis on Moldova.

Macron said on Monday that Moldova is facing increasingly blatant Russian attempts to destabilise the country, which shares a border with Ukraine and wants to join the European Union by 2030.

“Moldova, whose airspace is regularly violated by Russian drones and missiles, also has to contend with increasingly uninhibited Russian attempts at destabilisation, targeting your country’s democratic institutions in particular,” he said.

Sandu also urged European allies to continue strong support for Ukraine, saying that Russia wants to gain control over her country and use it as a tool against Kyiv.

“Moscow’s strategy is clear – to exploit Moldova’s vulnerabilities, subvert our democracy and turn our territory into a launch pad for further aggression,” she added.

($1 = 0.9231 euro)

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten in Paris and Yuliia Dysa in GdanskEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Matthew Lewis)