Transdnistria reopened
The Transdnistrian authorities have lifted all restrictions on entry into their territory, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Borys Tarasiuk announced last Friday. “This is a proven fact: dozens of trucks have already entered Transdnistria,” the minister added.
This means that the “war of nerves” that broke out after Kyiv imposed new customs rules on the Ukraine-Moldova border is over. Apparently, Tiraspol understood that it was counterproductive to rely exclusively on its own forces (even though it has Russia as an ally). The EU and the US completely supported the actions of Ukraine and Moldova, aimed at establishing a more transparent regime on the border’s Transdnistrian sector.
In early March Ukraine introduced a new customs clearing procedure on the Ukrainian-Moldovan border. Since then Ukraine has not allowed cargo not cleared by Moldova’s customs office to cross the border. The Transdnistrian authorities called the new customs regime a blockade of the self-proclaimed Transdnistrian Moldovan Republic.
In fact, it was a “self-imposed blockade,” because cargo had not been banned from that unstable region. All that the economic agents of Transdnistria had to do was draw up the required documents in Chisinau on a preferential basis.
Dmytro Tkach, Ukraine’s special representative to the Transdnistrian settlement, announced last Friday that all checkpoints on the Transdnistrian sector of the Ukraine-Moldova border have been reopened. “The Supreme Council of Transdnistria resolved to unblock the checkpoints through which trucks go to Transdnistria,” Interfax-Ukraine quotes Tkach as saying. He noted that the situation with railroad transport remains unclear. Transdnistria lets trains pass on a selective basis: for example, cars loaded with scrap metal and salt were cleared.
Tkach said that over 200 railway cars were standing idle at Ukraine-Moldova border checkpoints, and there are 2,500 cars throughout Ukraine, which cannot cross the Ukraine-Moldova border. Ukraine is thus losing about one million hryvnias a day.
According to Oleksandr Yehorov, chairman of the State Customs Service, Ukraine is not going to lift the new customs clearance regime for goods coming from Transdnistria. “If the blockade problem has been solved, we are reverting to the March 3 status, when Transdnistrian goods were being cleared only if they had passed through the Moldovan customs office,” Yehorov said.
Ukraine hopes that Moldova will take all necessary measures to simplify the customs clearance procedure for Transdnistrian goods, and that the Transdnistrian and Moldovan authorities will coordinate their actions to resolve this problem.
Kyiv is also preparing to protect itself from other “self-imposed blockades” that Transdnistria may resort to in the future. The Ministry of Transport and Communications announced last Friday that Ukraine may build a railway track bypassing Moldova within three years, provided there is sufficient funding. It has been reported that the blocking by Transdnistria of Ukrainian cargo, amounting to three million tons of goods, causes huge annual losses for Ukraine.
