EU needs ‘Marshall Plan’ for Moldova and Ukraine, Sandu says

The EU should develop an ‘equivalent’ version of the World War Two-era US Marshall Plan to fund development projects in Moldova and war-torn Ukraine, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on Monday (29 April).

“Just as Western Europe was offered an economic lifeline after the Second World War by the American Marshall Plan, Moldova and Ukraine need a tightly focused 21st-century equivalent from the European Union,” Sandu said at the EU’s annual budget conference in Brussels.

Signed into law by former US President Harry Truman in 1948, the Marshall Plan — named after then-Secretary of State George Marshall — provided billions of dollars in economic assistance to European countries ravaged by the Second World War.

Moldova, who together with Ukraine last year received the green light to start accession talks with the EU, has the second-lowest GDP per capita in Europe.

“The Marshall Plan was designed to show to an exhausted continent that capitalism and democracy were a better way forward than anything offered by Communism. Today’s modern version will also need to offer similar hope to those of us working our way towards EU membership,” she added.

Sandu’s call echoes similar calls for a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine made last year, both by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as by a number of EU member states.

In February this year, the United Nations estimated that Ukraine’s reconstruction will cost $486 billion over the next decade — $75 billion more than projected in 2023.

During her speech, Sandu repeatedly emphasised that the bloc’s budget should not only finance critical green, digital, and infrastructure projects but should also be geared towards “protecting values” that are under threat from “forces with a dark vision” for the European continent.

“Budgets were about the nuts and bolts of economic and social progress, how we should invest in education, technology, the green transition and many other important needs,” Sandu said.

“We still need to do all of that – but we also need to invest in saving lives, bringing back peace, and defending liberty at key moments in history,” she added.

The Moldovan president, however, expressed optimism about Europe’s ability to confront the security challenges posed by Russia’s continued aggression on Ukraine.

“Europe has always stepped up and found the resources to help because we Europeans believe that the expansion of evil can be stopped only through the enlargement of goodness,” she said.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Chris Powers]

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