Russia and EU could start from Transnistria: The Economist

“Let us live in poverty, but in a country at peace,” says Vasily Sova, Moldova’s negotiator with its breakaway territory of Transnistria, when asked about the billions lavished on Georgia after its August war with Russia. Unlike the belligerent Georgia, Moldova has taken a gentle approach to its Russian-backed separatists, and it is not trying to join NATO. Yet it is barely nearer than Georgia to a deal over lost territory, writes the renowned British publication “The Economist”, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, went to Moldova this week to push a new initiative. Russia does not recognize Transnistria's independence, but it wants to keep troops there, a condition all other parties reject. The Moldovan and Transnistrian leaders have not met recently. Moldova’s president, Vladimir Voronin, was turned back when he tried to visit his home village in Transnistria. Mr Voronin called Transnistria's leader, Igor Smirnov, “an evil force who has turned his region into a festering wound on the body of Moldova”, the publication writes in an articles called “Another forgotten conflict”. Yet the dispute has none of the deep hostilities of the Caucasus. Trade across the Dniester is flourishing. The Transnistrian football team, Sheriff, tops the Moldovan league. Tiraspol is something of a museum of Soviet nostalgia, with its Lenin statue and Karl Marx street. But Sergei Cheban, head of the foreign-affairs committee in the Transnistrian parliament, tries to be reasonable. Of Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he says “we do not need that kind of recognition,” holding out the chance of a sovereignty deal with Moldova. The European Union, just 100km (60 miles) away, has both carrots and sticks at its disposal. The promise of trade with the EU has enticed some 500 Transnistrian companies to register in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau. Against that, Europe’s border assistance mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), based in Odessa, is trying hard to prevent smuggling in the area. Data turned up by EUBAM suggests that most rumors of arms- and drug-smuggling are mythical. But there is a lively and lucrative, if more banal, trade in which Ukrainian and Moldovan businessmen exploit the black hole of Transnistria to dodge customs duties on cars or chicken. In 2006, EUBAM has found, the poor folk of Transnistria nominally ate 12 times as much chicken per head as Germans. A settlement of the Transnistrian dispute would nudge both Moldova and Ukraine closer to Europe. It could also win Russia a friendly outpost on the edge of the EU. Yet Russian stubbornness has been matched only by European indifference. If both sides want a more constructive relationship, as the EU’s decision this week to restart partnership talks with Russia suggests, Transnistria might be a good place to begin, “The Economist” opines.