The European Union and Moldova on Tuesday agreed on an energy security plan aimed at weaning the country off its dependence on Russian supplies and integrating it into the 27-nation bloc’s network.
The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said that Moldova would receive 250 million euros ($258 million) this year — 40% of it by mid-April — after Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut supplies on Jan. 1.
Daily electrical outages were imposed after hundreds of thousands of people in Moldova’s separatist pro-Russian Transnistria region were left without heating and hot water last month over an alleged $709 million bill for past supplies to Moldova.
The decision by Gazprom, which came into effect a day after a gas transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine expired, halted gas supplies to Transnistria’s gas-operated Kuciurgan power plant, the country’s largest, which provided a significant portion of Moldova’s electricity.
The commission said that its financial package will provide support to consumers in Moldova – a candidate country for EU membership – to help pay their rising electricity bills. Some 60 million euros ($62 million) is earmarked for 350,000 people left in the cold in Transnistria.
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But Transnistria has a Russian Puppet Government. I doubt they give up their “independence” voluntarily