BY
Recently your author has made a few trips to the Moldavian
capital Chișinău due to a necessity to blow the accumulated dust from
weighty tomes of historical documents – the documents sought having little to
do with Moldova, but rather Romania of a century (and more) ago.
It is possible to drive from Odessa to Moldova either directly, avoiding
Transnistria, or going through Transnistria. If ever there is need of a
reminder that despite a quarter of a century of gross political and economic
mismanagement within an independent Ukraine it has nonetheless progressed, then
a bumbling about in Transnistria very quickly provides such evidence, with
Transnistria offering a step back in time of 50+ years in almost every sense.
The Transnistrian border guards are always good for conversation too
(albeit driven by poor attempts at intelligence gathering rather than genuine
conversation). They always ask after Odessa and how things are
politically and economically, and as a matter of politeness the reciprocal
questions are asked of Transnistria. According to one of your author’s
favourite border guards, very soon Transnistria’s economic woes will be over –
for they have discovered gold and diamonds on the territory!
It naturally followed that your author asked how to gain a Transnistrian
passport in time to share in this newly discovered and soon to be developed
wealth. Sadly however, the response was that it simply wasn’t possible
for just anybody to gain a Transnistrian passport, and thus there way little
chance of sharing in the forthcoming financial bonanza.
Perhaps over forthcoming trips to the archives in Chișinău it may
be possible to negotiate some movement in the friendly border guard’s position?
After all, historically Transnistria has relied upon Odessa as a
legitimate and illegitimate route for trade in and out of the territory – quid
pro quo in sharing in this new found wealth?
However, with Moldova already having a FTA and Visa-free travel with the
EU, and Ukraine’s DCFTA with the EU now being in force, (as well as being subject
to Kremlin sanctions simultaneously as a result) and with Visa-free travel with
the EU likely to come into effect before the end of 2016 (probably some time
between June and September along with Kosovo, Georgia and Turkey) there is
going to be a far more robust adherence of regulatory norms to which Ukraine is
now legally obligated with regard to EU expectations/requirements – which will
have an effect upon Transnistria.
Only the naive, or the retarded, will lay claim to an end of the
legitimate trade between Transnistria and Odessa/Ukraine – though they may
rightly raise the issue of tariffs now being more effectively applied than have
historically been less than stringently applied. It would be equally
naive, or retarded, to claim that illicit trade will cease too – particularly
that of the organised typed that will simply find the weakest links in border
management/patrols. It will however, undoubtedly become more difficult
than has traditionally been the case.
Despite the (fanstasy) claims of your author’s favourite Transnistrian
border guard of new found gold and diamond resources, clearly there will be
economic repercussions upon a Kremlin subsidy dependent Transnistrian economy –
which will in turn leads to questions about any future 5+2 negotiations over
the Transnistrian territory, and just how much more “interesting” if not
“prickly” they will become – albeit such negotiations take place without any
serious expectations of ever coming close to any effective settlement.
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