The effects of a short, bloody civil war in Moldova some 30 years ago are still being felt today – and are proving a potential stumbling block for the country’s EU accession plans, despite EU assurances to the contrary.
Over the summer, European officials assured Moldova, now an EU candidate, that it could join the bloc – even though Transnistria, a separatist region in the east of the country where Russian troops are located, remains outside of its control.
With this move, EU leaders appeared to signal to Moscow that territorial conflicts in eastern Europe will not become an obstacle to EU expansion.
But this message does not mean Moldova can or should avoid resolving the Transnistria conflict. Not least if it doesn’t, Transnistria will remain a “grey zone”, where under the protection of the Russian military, crime and corrutption flourish.
Currently, Chișinău (Moldova’s capital) does not have a strategy for the reintegration of Transnistria.
It hopes that the process of European integration will stimulate a final settlement on the breakaway region, dragging the territory back under its control as part of growing closer to the EU. The vast majority of Transnistria’s residents have Moldovan passports and do business or have family in Moldova. Chișinău hopes that, through new norms and laws, these people would be indirectly exposed to the EU through Moldova and find it more attractive than their existing situations in Transnistria.
European officials are making positive statements in order to prevent Moscow or Tiraspol from blackmailing Chișinău on its way to the EU
But just as Moldova’s EU integration could spur the process of reintegration, the Transnistrian problem could put a brake on Moldova’s movement towards the EU.
The head of the EU delegation to Ukraine recently cast doubt on the prospect of Moldova joining the EU without Transnistria, saying that “the experience of some previous enlargements shows that the European Union does not currently want to be drawn into other people’s territorial conflicts”.
Moreover, one of the most important tasks to be resolved in the process of reintegration is the issue of the withdrawal of the Russian military from Transnistria. This means that settling the Transnistria conflict depends on the will of Moscow.
For Moldova, the prospect of European integration is a powerful political factor. President Maia Sandu is planning to use interim success on EU accession as her political force’s main trump card ahead of next year’s presidential elections.
The European Commission (EC) is expected to present its new EU enlargement policy in the near future, claiming that Moldova and Western Balkans states could join by 2030. Before the end of October, the EC will present its annual reports on the progress of countries involved in the EU accession process – including Moldova – and make concrete proposals for the EU’s ongoing enlargement.
Hostage to Moscow
Before July this year, no European officials had ever allowed themselves, in public, to support Moldova’s accession to the EU without the Transnistria conflict resolved.
“Moldova will have to decide on its own what to do with the Transnistrian region. Cyprus became a member of the EU, despite territorial problems. And Moldova can do the same,” said Josep Borrell, vice president of the EC, in Chișinău in July.
The head of Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration (MFAEI) went even further.
“The territory controlled by the government in Chișinău can join the EU, regardless of what happens to the east of us, including the situation around Transnistria,” Nicu Popescu said on 19 September.
The next day, MFAEI confirmed that “one of the options” could be for Moldova to join the European Union without Transnistria, but that it would “continue to look for ways to resolve the Transnistrian conflict even after joining the EU”.
The MFAEI’s position has probably pleased the unrecognised authorities in Tiraspol, who have long insisted that Moldova and Transnistria are two equal and different states with different geopolitical aspirations.
But experts in Chișinău received Popescu’s statement with surprise.
“It is impossible to amputate a seventh part of the country, for which tens of thousands of people fought and continue to fight: mayors, doctors, teachers, parents and children on the left bank of the Dniester in disputed villages,” former deputy prime minister for reintegration Alexander Flenca wrote at the time.
The EU delegation to Moldova told openDemocracy that “the European future of Moldova should not be hostage to the conflict”.
At the same time, the EU mission also emphasised that the Moldovan government should make every effort to ensure that the entire population of Moldova would benefit from the EU integration process.
Moldova’s current deputy prime minister for reintegration Oleg Serebrian refused to comment on the position of the Moldovan Foreign Ministry to openDemocracy.
Unlikely consensus
Moldovan foreign policy and reintegration experts suspect that statements by senior European officials on accepting Moldova into the EU with the Transnistria dispute ongoing are likely directed at Moscow – to emphasise that the “Transnistria problem” will not block Chișinău’s EU integration.
But this does not mean that the EU is ready to “import” the Transnistrian conflict, they say.
“Theoretically, entry [into the EU] with an unresolved conflict is possible, but there is unlikely to be a consensus among EU member states,” said Vasily Shova, Moldova’s former deputy prime minister for reintegration.
According to Shova, European officials are making positive statements in order to prevent Moscow or Tiraspol from blackmailing Chișinău on its way to the EU, and while this is enough to open negotiations with the EU, it is not enough for accession.
Evghenii Ceban
Kamil Całus, a senior analyst at the OSW Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, is also not sure that EU members are ready to accept Moldova with an uncontrolled Transnistria. “It seems that some [member states] may have a serious problem with it,” Całus told openDemocracy.
The strength of economic ties between the two banks of the Dniester river means that Moldova will likely have to move in sync with Transnistria, Shova and Całus said. He pointed out that Moldova’s previous agreements with the EU, such as the country’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement or the visa-free regime, “were adopted despite Transnistria”.
Further, Chișinău has now “gained full control over trade” conducted with Transnistria, Całus points out, after Ukraine closed its border with Transnistria in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Moldova (and therefore Transnistria) has also moved away from reliance on Russian gas, and this means that Moscow’s influence in Transnistria is “decreasing”, Całus says (it has previously used energy supplies as a source of leverage on the country).
This means that Chișinău can “de facto decide whether and in what quantities to supply Transnistria with gas, without risking that Russia will cut off [Moldova],” he said.
“Simply put, Transnistria has never been so dependent on the goodwill of Chișinău and so vulnerable to its pressure,” Całus says.
“The question is: does Moldova have a plan to use this advantage and force Transnistria to cooperate?”
