Monitoring→Politics→Transnistrian Conflict

• Minister of Reintegration, Vasile Sova, published an open letter to the participants in the “5+2” talks, calling for additional efforts towards resuming the negotiations process. Minister Sova expressed his concern regarding the tensioning of the situation in the security zone and the multiple cases of human rights violations and of limitation of the freedom of movement, as well as the negative consequences these might have in the absence of any dialogue between the two sides. “We are convinced that the immediate return of participants to the negotiations table and the full resumption of talks can stabilise the situation, while the constructive cooperation of all interested sides will help identify solutions to the issues Moldovan and foreign citizens are facing on a daily basis”, the open letter says.

• The OSCE Mission to Moldova announced it will summon the mediators and observers to a new round of consultations in the near future to discuss opportunities for resuming the “5+2” talks. The consultations round will precede the visit to Moldova of the OSCE Chairman in Office, Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, scheduled for early October. According to the OSCE, this visit could have a significant contribution to the resumption of negotiations in the “5+2” format.

• On 6 September the US Ambassador to Moldova, Michael Kirby, had meetings in Tiraspol with the head of the Transnistrian foreign affairs department, Valeri Litkai, and the chairman of the local legislative, Evgeni Sevciuc. The meeting with Litkai seems to be part of the US efforts aimed at resuming the political dialogue in the “5+2” format, this being the main subject discussed, according to a press release of the Transnistrian department. This subject however did not feature on the agenda of the meeting with Evgeni Sevciuc. According to the Internet page of the Tiraspol legislature, Ambassador Kirby stated the following after the meeting: “We discussed about the drought, which caused important losses to the agricultural sector. We discussed a broad range of economic problems. In the Transnistrian region live people and they suffer as a result of natural calamities. We examine a number of possibilities of granting assistance and we will see what can be done”. It is worth noting that these two meetings follow a number of visits by the American diplomat to Transnistria in the past months, during which he met with Transnistrian journalists and NGOs, including the “Proriv” movement. These visits have attracted criticism against the US Ambassador from some Moldovan commentators who said that these visits would legitimise break away ideas, movements and leaders. The opinion of this e-journal is that although these visits do involve some risks, they are necessary and need to continue because they offer a good opportunity for knowing and understanding each other. This is an opening that other diplomatic missions accredited to Moldova, international organisations and NGOs need to adopt. The humanitarian rationale and the solidarity with the ordinary residents of Transnistria need to prevail over fears of undermining the territorial integration of Moldova.

• The budget of the Transnistrian region for 2008 will not include among its revenue lines the financial assistance from the Russian Federation, of which the region benefited until 2006. In order to supplement budget revenues, Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov proposed increasing the tax on retail sales by 3%, as well as increase the income tax for business. The proposals prompted heated debates among Transnistrian deputies who thought they could have negative effects on the socio-economic situation of citizens, could increase the inflation rate up to 12% and excessively increase the fiscal burden born by businesses. Equally controversial proved to be the proposals to introduce direct financial management of the Camenca and Dubasari districts, bread allowances for pensioners and protection measures for citizens in case of high inflation rates. “In Transnistria there are 134,000 pensioners, 70,000 budget employees and only 120,000 employees, of which 46, 000 work in industry. Unless we have 200,000 employees, even if we develop the best fiscal system we will not get any results”, the head of the Transnistrian legislative, Evgenii Sevciuc, said in the context of budget debates. Thus, it seems that immediate solutions for overcoming the critical budgetary situation in which the region found itself in 2007 seem difficult to be identify, rather a thorough revision of the economic and fiscal policies of the region being necessary.

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