Vice-Premier Stratan: Signing Frontier Minor Traffic Convention is not as simple as politicians think

Signing the Convention of the minor traffic at the border with the EU “is not as simple as interpreted by politicians from Chisinau,” Foreign Minister Andrei Stratan told journalists on Wednesday, May 14, Info-Prim Neo reports. “There are nuances of political and legal orders that shall be observed,” said the deputy premier. A delegation from Moldova's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration is in Bucharest to discuss with Romanian partners the possibility of signing the Convention on minor frontier traffic, the Basic Political Treaty and the Border Demarcation Treaty. After Romania had offered Moldova to sign the Convention that would allow one million people living the border to enter Romania without visas, the Chisinau authorities asked to sign those two treaties, too. Moreover, the Moldovan Government wants the scope of the Convention to encompass not only the citizens living at 30-50 km from the border, as is the UE custom, but even the residents of the Transnistrian area at a distance of 200 km from Romania. The conditions of the Chisinau officials in this regard unleashed critique on behalf of opposition politicians, as some parties have already started to collect signatures of the citizens willing to signing of the Convention to speed up . Yet, Andrei Stratan said “We cannot help including the Moldovan citizens living in the Transnistrian area and perhaps it is not the case to devide the Moldovan citizens into 30 km, 50 km. Perhaps now it is the case to consider the possibility to include Moldova's entire territory.” Referring to the controversial announcement of the Bulgarian Government about the alleged annulment of the visa regime for Moldovans and Ukrainian, the foreign minister described it as “a very maladroit communique.” However, deputy premier Stratan hopes Romania and Bulgaria will not ask for transit visas from Moldovans with Schengen visas in their passports starting from July 2008.