Tiraspol, January 23. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Thomas Mayr-Harting intends to update the implementation of the Berlin + protocols. This is a package of agreements enshrined in the Berlin Protocol (2016) and subsequently supplemented by the Vienna (2017) and Rome (2018) Protocols. Moldova has not fulfilled its obligations on most points.
In particular, Thomas Mayr-Harting noted the problem of telecommunications.
“The OSCE is concerned about resolving this issue. I also discussed this topic at a meeting in Chisinau. We will continue efforts in this area. I consider this issue very important, since it is weird if a call from Chisinau to Tiraspol is more expensive than the one to Washington, and a call from Tiraspol to Chisinau is more expensive than the one to Nur-Sultan,” the OSCE Special Representative emphasized.
It should be recalled that in 2003 the state-owned company of Moldova Radio Communications launched the broadcasting of a television transmitter on the frequency used by Interdnestrcom. For this reason, mobile communications were almost paralyzed in Pridnestrovie.
At the end of 2016, the Moldovan mobile operator Orange, contrary to the agreements, unilaterally occupied the IDC frequencies that the Pridnestrovian company has been using since 2012.
A protocol decision on telecommunications and communications was signed in 2017. Despite the fact that in 2018 a roadmap for the implementation of the agreement was agreed upon, Chisinau did not take concrete steps.
In 2019, at a meeting of the presidents of Pridnestrovie and Moldova, Vadim Krasnoselsky and Igor Dodon, the parties agreed to resolve the issue by March 1, 2020, but there are no prerequisites for Chisinau to meet the deadline.
Mayr-Harting told the press that he was following the progress of the Moldovan-Pridnestrovian settlement even after he no longer represented the EU in the “Permanent Meeting ...” (Pridnestrovie and Moldova are parties; Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE are mediators; the US and the EU are observers).
He emphasized that there had been a period when the negotiation process was yielding results. As an example, the OSCE Special Representative cited the opening of a bridge across the Dniester in the villages of Bychok (Pridnestrovie) and Gura-Bykului (Moldova) in 2017.
The Organization of Security and Collaboration in Europe, along with Russia and Ukraine, is a mediator in the negotiations on the Moldovan-Pridnestrovian settlement. From January 1, 2020, the chairmanship of the OSCE passed to Albania.
