Russia cannot repeat the Crimea scenario in the Transnistrian region of Moldova, considers Ioan Mircea Pascu, who is the Vice President of the European Parliament and of its Committee on Foreign Affairs and is a member of the Parliamentary Committee for Association between the EU and Moldova, IPN reports.
“At this moment, in accordance with the commitments, the Transnistrian region is a component part of Moldova’s territory and the Russians cannot take servicemen there without the consent of the Moldovan government and must do it in certain conditions that are known by everyone. They cannot do what they did in Crimea by annexing the given territory,” Ioan Mircea Pascu said in a meeting with Moldovan journalists in Brussels.
“From military viewpoint, Transnistria’s value is lower than that of Crimea, but remains important at political level. Through the agency of Transnistria, Moscow always aimed to exercise control and influence on Chisinau when it didn’t control it directly. Surely, things there could be stirred up anytime, but the people from the West are already very attentive to such things,” stated the official.
As regards the statements reading the creation of a common European army made following the worsening of the regional situation, the Vice President of the EP said there are a series of political, legal and strictly military elements that should be taken into account. “How many Constitutions should be amended to form a European army? Do you think such a process is easy? I’m not close to Junker (President of the European Commission, e.n.) to be able to say why he made such a statement, but I consider it a political statement showing that if the regional situation worsens further, we can think about something like this too. I don’t know how they will interpret such statements in Moscow, but I’m convinced that there are people there who see the real value of the messages coming from here,” said Ioan Mircea Pascu.
He also said that the situation in eastern Ukraine represents a real war owing to which Russia sustains serious consequences through the sanctions imposed by the EU. Even the Russian leader Vladimir Putin admitted that the sanctions affect the country’s economy, but they will not change their decision. “If Russia was ready to promote its objectives in Ukraine by the force of the army, I think in such a country as Moldova there is no more place for arms, at least at the current stage,” stated the MEP.
Ioan Mircea Pascu noted that Germany was the first to say that what Russia did in Ukraine was a military violation of borders, thing that wasn’t witnessed after World War II. The EU understood thus that it will not look credible before Russia if it does not show that it is ready to spend money to achieve its goals.
