Slim chance for Transnistria conflict settlement

Slim chance for Transnistria conflict settlement
Getting the populations on both sides of the Dniester river onside will be an extremely difficult task. / Photo: CC
By Clare Nuttall in Bucharest January 12, 2017

The election of a new pro-Russian president in Moldova has given fresh hope that a settlement to the frozen Transnistria conflict could be in sight, for the first time in more than a decade. However, getting the populations on both sides of the Dniester river onside will be an extremely difficult task.

Less than two weeks after his inauguration, Igor Dodon met the president of the separatist Transnistria republic, becoming the first Moldovan president to do so since 2008. The meeting was hailed as a sign that Dodon plans to break with recent tradition and could achieve a breakthrough in relations with Tiraspol.

Dodon’s meeting with Transnistria’s President Vadim Krasnoselsky, who was elected in December 2016, made progress on several practical issues, albeit without making a dent in the fundamental divisions between the two sides dating back to Tiraspol’s declaration of independence in 1990, when Moldova was still part of the Soviet Union.

The unrecognised republic, a small strip of land between the Dneistr river and the Ukrainian border, has a mainly Russian-speaking population and unlike the rest of Moldova was never part of greater Romania. The determination of the Transnistria leadership to break away was reinforced when Chisinau declared its independence from the Soviet Union the following year, and its intention to reunify with Romania.

An attempt by Moldova to regain control of the renegade province by force resulted in the deaths of at least 650 people and eventually failed, as they were repulsed by Transnistrian forces backed by Russia. Since then the conflict has been frozen, with Transnistria, which has a population of just under 500,000, remaining de facto independent and bankrolled by Russia.

Resolving the split today will not be easy, but the omens look better than at any time since the deal presented by Dmitry Kozak, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was under discussion back in 2003. The Kozak Memorandum – which would have introduced asymmetric federalism in Moldova – was approved by the Transnistrian side but, after lengthy consideration, Moldova’s then President Vladimir Voronin declined to sign.

Talks between the two sides have continued since then in the “5+2” format, with the participation of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the EU, Russia, Ukraine and the US, but without any substantial progress.

Krasnoselsky told Transnistria’s state news agency Novosti PMR that the January 4 meeting with Dodon had focussed on practical rather than political issues. The two men identified the free movement of citizens, rail links, recognition of Transnistrian educational certificates and number plates as priorities in the negotiations. It also looks likely that the Joint Cooperation Council, which regulates activity in the border region around Transnistria, might resume work after a two-year hiatus. At the meeting, Krasnoselsky also noted a “change in the rhetoric of the Moldova authorities with regard to the [Russian] peacekeeping forces on Transnistrian territory”.

“We cannot hope for too much since the breach after the failure of the Kozak plan is enormous and a total restart needs to be organised,” says Michael Geistlinger, professor at the University of Salzburg and a former OSCE conflict resolution expert on Moldova and Transnistria. “However, there are realistic prospects that day-to-day problems could be easier to overcome than before. For example, the railway has been closed for the transport of goods from the Moldovan side; if this could be opened it is already an enormous achievement. The fact that the two presidents met each other quite early is a good sign.”

Dodon may have softened his campaign rhetoric somewhat after being elected, but he has still demonstrated his credentials as a pro-Russian politician. In addition to the meeting with Krasnoselsky, one of his first acts as president was to push for the removal of Defence Minister Anatol Salaru. Salaru had been a staunch advocate of Moldova’s integration with Nato, as well as being a member of the Liberal Party, which is sympathetic to the idea of reunification with Romania - two deal-breakers for Tiraspol.

New beginning

On the Transnistrian side, there do not appear to be any substantial foreign policy differences between Krasnoselsky and his predecessor Evgheni Shevchuk; both are Russian speakers who believe Transnistria belongs within the Russian-speaking world. However, having a new figure at the helm of the unrecognised republic at least means the chance for a new beginning on a personal level.

In addition, Natalia Otel Belan, deputy regional director, Eurasia and South Asia at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), speculates that his connections to the giant Sheriff holding company, which backs his party Oblovlenie, increase the chances of him taking a pragmatic policy course and avoiding steps that could harm businesses in the republic.

That being said, the rift between Chisinau and Tiraspol is considerable, and developments over the past decade have helped to widen it, as the Moldovan government has pursued EU integration. In contrast to the Balkans, where the incentive of progressing towards EU membership has helped to bring former adversaries together, in Moldova it has had the opposite effect. By moving towards the EU, rump Moldova has gone where Transnistria cannot - and will not - follow. Most Moldovans fear that taking the final step of entering the bloc would mean accepting permanent separation from Transnistria.

Geistlinger criticises the EU’s approach of reaching out unilaterally to Chisinau, contrasting it with the OSCE’s earlier insistence on settling the conflict before either Moldova or Transnistria could benefit from external support or investment. “The EU was never in a position to resolve this conflict because it never stood in the middle of the two parties, but took the side of the Moldovan government,” he says. As a result, he believes that due to the approach taken by Brussels, “any peace solution was sabotaged.”

This means that a change of direction under Dodon, the first pro-Russian president in Chisinau since Communist Party leader Voronin’s final term ended in 2009, could be the key to unlocking the settlement process.

It’s not clear exactly what a settlement might look like, though it would most likely be a ‘united state of Moldova’ with a high level of autonomy for the republics of Moldova and Transnistria, and a smaller degree for a third entity, the Turkic-speaking Gagauzia. The terminology is tricky; “talking about a ‘federal’ state is too much for the Moldovan side and too little for Transnistria”, points out Geistlinger. However, he notes that there are many possible models for a unified Moldovan state, listing Canada, Belgium, the Åland Islands and the autonomous South Tyrol region in Italy.

Geistlinger also recalls that earlier negotiations showed the two sides would be open to creating a single constitutional court and a single court system, while it would be harder to agree on other issues, in particular the state structure. 

Federalisation of Moldova has been favoured all along by Moscow, as bolting Moldova and Transnistria back together would ensure Russian influence over the entire country and prevent rump Moldova’s escape from the Russosphere into the EU.

“In the federal state, the deeply pro-Russian Transnistria and Gagauzia would have a significant influence on the activities of the central government in Chisinau, and especially its foreign policy,” writes Kamil Całus of the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in a December 2016 report, The Unfinished State: 25 Years of Independent Moldova. “[A] federalisation of Moldova … would be a guarantee that the country remains neutral, and would effectively block any attempts on the part of Moldova to integrate with Western structures.”

Awareness of this means there will inevitably be “very serious opposition” to a proposal along the lines of the old Kozak plan both inside Moldova and from the international community, warns Belan. “We need to find a settlement but we should also look at other options that would be a better fit for Moldova,” she says. 

Roll back

To reach a settlement, Chisinau would most likely have to roll back at least some of the progress made in recent years towards EU integration; otherwise it would not be able to get the Transnistrians to sign up to a deal. On the other hand, a lurch towards Russia would be unpalatable to the many Moldovans who see themselves as part of Europe rather than the Russian sphere of influence, even though the EU has been discredited recently by its support for corrupt local politicians.

A March 2016 poll commissioned by the non-profit International Republican Institute showed that support for Moldova’s entry to the EU was at 43%, just one percentage point below support for entry to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, indicating that Moldovans remain very evenly split between the two options.

On the other hand, Geistlinger notes that “it is clear that even if Krasnoselsky is calling Transnistria part of the Russian-speaking world, he feels closer to Moldova than to Russia”; likewise most Moldovans feel closer to Transnistria than Romania or the EU.

However, Całus is highly sceptical about the chances of reaching a settlement under Dodon, writing after the president’s election that, “in the immediate future the issue of establishing a federal state of Moldova and Transnistria will probably become one of the fundamental questions in the country’s political life … For the time being, though, this scenario is rather unlikely, in part due to the president’s infinitesimal competences in this area.”

Another obstacle pointed out by Belan is that two and a half years after Moldova signed its Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, simply cancelling the two agreements is not an option - whatever pledges Dodon made during his electoral campaign. “As president, [Dodon] will have to be able to balance the economic interests of the country,” she says. “Rolling back [the two agreements] will be extremely difficult and damaging for Moldova, which has already made a lot of progress on implementing them.”

Not just Moldova but Transnistria too has reoriented economically towards the EU, as producers have been forced to channel their exports via Moldova and EU countries by the Ukrainian blockade. Meanwhile, the latest data from the Moldova statistics bureau shows that EU markets continue to substitute for Russia and other CIS countries in the structure of Moldova’s total exports. In November 2016, exports to EU countries surged by 46% y/y to $153mn, while exports to CIS countries contracted by 4% y/y to $37mn.

Ending Russian trade embargoes against Moldova will be high on the agenda during Dodon’s visit to Moscow on January 17, but this will not result in an immediate return of Moldovan goods to the Russian market.

One Moldovan exporter, wine producer Chateau Vartely, warned back in 2014 that the company’s wines were unlikely to return to the Russian market even after the embargo was lifted. “The rules of the shelf are that if your product is absent for more than one month, your place will be occupied by others,” the company’s general director Ludmila Gogu said in an interview with bne IntelliNews in June 2014. As a result, even if Moldova does not continue to move towards EU integration, continued cooperation with the bloc will be vital economically.

Dodon’s political stance may incline towards Russia, but if he is to have any prospect of reuniting the two parts of the country he will have to ensure that the solution on the table is palatable to both pro-Russians (in Moldova and Transnistria) and to Romanian-speaking pro-EU Moldovans. The new president has a weighty and delicate task ahead of him. 

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