Emmanuel Macron told TVR Moldova that “nobody can ignore all the progress made by the Republic of Moldova” on its path into the European Union. The interview followed EU leaders’ talks on enlargement. PRO TV Chișinău reported the remarks on Saturday, 17 October 2026. The French president gave no date for the next negotiating chapters.

The method remains, he insisted, each candidate’s own merits. “Yesterday, during the discussion, it was very clear that everyone recognises Moldova’s progress. Therefore, as progress is recorded, all chapters will be opened,” Macron said. That is not the opening of a package: it is political recognition plus a condition. Chapters follow results, not a timetable announced at the microphone.

Macron recalled France’s support in recent years against disinformation and foreign interference, “including for our own security”. He said he firmly backed what President Maia Sandu had done and what the government was still doing through reforms. That is Paris’s position, not a verdict of the 27.

On 13 October the EU and Moldova opened, according to the Council, the chapter groups “Internal market” and “Competitiveness and inclusive growth” — 17 chapters, after “External relations” in July. PRO TV also notes the “Fundamentals” cluster, opened in June. Later groups therefore remain to be negotiated. Macron did not say the file was closed.

In the summit conclusions leaders took note of the Commission’s proposals to prepare the Union for a further enlargement — institutions, policies, budget, rule-of-law guarantees after accession — and asked the Council to examine them. They repeated, there too, that each candidate moves according to its own results.

This article is not an accession timetable and does not treat a statement of support as a signed treaty.

Image: Britchi Mirela, Elysee Palace from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, Paris, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive, not the October 2026 TVR interview.

Sources consulted: Emmanuel Macron: Nimeni nu poate ignora progresele facute de Republica Moldova - PRO TV Chisinau; Enlargement: EU and Moldova start talks on internal market - Consilium.