Technical Assistance to Support the Government of Moldova in the Preparation and Negotiation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA)

Targeted technical assistance to the Government of Moldova (GoM) in negotiating a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement (DCFTA) with the EU. An EC fact-finding mission visited Moldova at the end of May/early June 2010 with the purpose of assessing the institutional capacity of Moldova to negotiate and implement a DCFTA with the EU in areas such as: trade with goods and services, tariff barriers for trade, non-tariff barriers, sanitary and phytosanitary, intellectual property rights, public procurement, trade facilitation, customs administration, financial services and competition. Following the fact-finding mission, the EC issued on 26.10.2010 a set of recommendations to the Moldovan Government listing the thematic areas where additional progress is required; these included key and additional recommendations in 13 various thematic areas. The main objective of the project will be to support the GoM in all these 13 areas to prepare and negotiate DCFTA with the EU.