Tiraspol, August 24 /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. The date of September 1, when Ukraine can change the border crossings arrangements for vehicles with Pridnestrovian license plates, hasn’t yet occurred. However, currently signals are already received that Pridnestrovian owner-driver are starting to experience a range of difficulties on the Ukrainian territory. For instance, a message from a Tiraspol resident Elena Geshko-Maksimyuk, in the Pridnestrovie Online Facebook group began one of such recent signals.
She described that a car in which her family was riding had been stopped by Ukrainian traffic policeman on the Nikolaev-Odessa highway. The car had Pridnestrovian license plates and the driving license was also the Pridnestrovian one. The Road Patrol Service inspector noted that such certificate is contrary to international requirements, in other words, the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic of November 8, 1968. As a result, a fine of 3,400 UAH was imposed for driving without the corresponding right for.
Commenting on the message, Elena Geshko-Maksimyuk noted that the traffic police inspector had on his table exactly the same protocol in the name of another person. “In other words, we weren’t the only ones getting caught,” she summarized.
Nevertheless, the question of what will happen to Pridnestrovian vehicles after September 1 is also of interest to other social networks users. One of them published a photo of a document in which the Ukraine State Customs Service prescribes regional customs offices not to allow cars with Pridnestrovian license plates to cross the border from September 1, referring to the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry information.
The PMR Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed for the Novosti Pridnestrovya news agency that the problem with the Pridnestrovian drivers’ movement in Ukraine have, in fact, deteriorated. There have been sanctions imposition isolated cases against Pridnestrovian owner-drivers before, but then it was associated with the specific Ukrainian police officers’ initiative. Currently, over the present summer, a number of such cases have already been recorded, in other words, we can talk about a focused approach.
The Pridnestrovian Foreign Ministry has already sent appeals with the situation description to all participants in the 5 + 2 negotiation format. The first of them was sent to the Ukrainian side. The Foreign Ministry will also provide legal assistance to suffered drivers.
It should be noted that the Pridnestrovian driver’s licenses actually comply with the Vienna Convention requirements, which in due course was recognized in the PMR as a framework rule of law. The certificate design was made according to international rules, the PMR sample was sent to the United Nations Organization, which proceeds depositary of the Vienna Convention. The very procedure for training drivers as well as issuing licenses is organized in Pridnestrovie in the same way as in other countries worldwide.
According to our diplomatic source, the problem of driving licenses was repeatedly discussed with the special the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office representative Thomas Mayr-Harting, who always assured that if a car has license plate, then anybody will be “neither stopped, nor fined, nor prevented from crossing the border.”
The current problems of the PMR automobile transport are actually caused not by Kiev, but actually by Chisinau, and consequently their decision is also for Chisinau. Ukrainian customs officials are referring to the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry, which in its turn is referring to the Moldovan Foreign Affairs Ministry as well as European Integration Ministry, which appeal to the Ukrainian authorities became the primal cause of what is happening today with Pridnestrovian owner-drivers in the neighboring country.
While Pridnestrovie in the year of 2019, proposed to resolve the driver’s licenses issue by developing their negotiated neutral sample, approximately the same as it was with neutral numbers. It would be possible to issue such certificates at the same vehicle registration points (VRP). However, such proposal wasn’t heard by Moldova at all.
As a result, today the stalemate situation has arisen: Chisinau strive for withdrawing Pridnestrovian certificates from international circulation, not wanting to discuss any real alternative to them. In other words, Moldovan authorities have their own alternative, such as replacing the Pridnestrovian certificates with Moldovan ones. However, today schemes associated with it today are such that sometimes raising concerns whether this procedure is completely legal from the international norms’ point of view?
In the current situation, Kiev is simply playing to Chisinau diplomatic script. According to the Pridnestrovian Foreign Ministry, the same situation was in April-May period of the year of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when essential goods as well as medical supplies for the PMR were stranded at the Ukrainian border. “Then we received Ukrainians’ clear confirmation that everything that’s happened was the Moldovan side request” the source in the Pridnestrovian Foreign Ministry clarified the situation to Novosti Pridnestrovya news agency.
