Tiraspol, March 25. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. Recently, it has been two months since Oleg Serebryan was appointed the new political representative of Moldova in the Moldovan-Pridnestrovian negotiation process. Oleg Serebryan became the successor of Vladislav Kulminsky, who resigned in early November 2021. After this resignation, the place of the political representative from the Republic of Moldova has been empty for two and a half months.
With the appointment of a new negotiator from Moldova, there was a glimmer of hope that the negotiation process would become more active and productive, while the parties would move towards a gradual resolution of stalled issues. However, even though the dialogue between Tiraspol and Chisinau has been resumed under new challenging conditions, it is not as if there is any significant shift here so far. Rather, new ones are being added to the already existing challenges. They are connected with the import of goods to Pridnestrovie, as well as with the work of Pridnestrovian enterprises.
It is still not so easy to import medicines and fuels, and lubricants to the PMR through Moldova. The situation in these areas is surely under control, as a result, all cargoes ended up in the PMR. But often this happens with a delay, which can be up to 3 days. Difficulties arise with the import into Pridnestrovie of medicines that are not registered in the state register of the Republic of Moldova. As for imported fuels and lubricants, the Moldovan side seeks to control their volumes, although no import restrictions have ever been established here.
Since the end of last year, the story of the detention of blanks for Pridnestrovian license plates in Kaushani continues. They still haven't been returned. The Moldovan police filed a lawsuit against the Pridnestrovian importer, State Unitary Enterprise Special Equipment and Supplies, yet the complainant representative failed to appear in court. As a result, it has already been postponed twice: this time to the end of April.
In December last year, a shipment of radio sets for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Pridnestrovie was also stopped in Kuchurgan. For some reason, the Moldovan side decided that those were dual-use goods (that is, they can be used as part of weapons). Their import requires a permit, which is issued by a special commission. This commission is quite rarely gathered: about once every two months.
They would be happy to let the transport with radio sets go to Pridnestrovie at the Ukrainian border, but it is physically blocked by Moldovan customs officers, who left Kuchurgan on February 24 after the start of events in Ukraine.
Large industrial enterprises of Pridnestrovie also face difficulties with the transportation of goods that fall under the category of dual-use according to the commodity nomenclature of foreign economic activity in Moldova. For example, the need to resolve this issue was announced at the Moldavskaya GRES, which mainly imported equipment through the Kuchurgan-Pervomaisk point previously.
Two days ago, a transport with meat from Poland for the Bendery Meat Processing Plant was not allowed in Pridnestrovie - imports were denied for unknown reasons, while this issue could not even be resolved at the level of the Moldovan political representative, who sincerely took an interest here. The car with the cargo went back to Poland.
Shot in Its Leg
A completely different story is the work of the Moldavian Metallurgical Plant. The situation there is paradoxical. Since February 23, Chisinau has blocked the import of scrap metal from Moldova to Pridnestrovie, as a result of which production in Rybnitsa has been stopped.
Meanwhile, last year MMP provided almost half of the export revenues of the PMR. Today, metal prices continue to grow against the backdrop of a large-scale sanction war between Russia and the West, as well as events in Ukraine. At the end of 2021, MMP shipped metallurgical products worth $432 million, and the already mentioned Poland became one of its main consumers in the EU (its share amounted to $122 million).
The plant could now bring considerable profit not only to Pridnestrovie but also to Moldova: Moldovan scrap collectors, transport companies that delivered scrap to Rybnitsa, as well as the Moldovan Railway. The Moldovan domestic scrap harvesting market was the first to suffer from the ban introduced on February 23: prices have declined significantly, since it is difficult to ship something to Turkey now (the port in Giurgiulesti is closed), for obvious reasons, raw materials cannot be sent to Ukraine or MMP. From this point of view, the Chisinau decision is not only a shot in MMP but also in its leg.
The problem of issuing an environmental permit to the plant, which will allow resuming full-fledged imports of scrap metal, also got hung up. The corresponding inspection at MMP took place at the beginning of March. It lasted three days. On March 4, while leaving, the Moldovan representatives said that they did not have a single claim against the enterprise, and promised to issue a permit as soon as possible. But this has not been done so far. The import of scrap from the countries of the European Union is also prohibited - for almost half a year.
The problems with imports to the PMR and the work of enterprises could probably be resolved sooner if the institutions of the negotiation process, including expert (working) groups, were fully operational. However, as Dmitry Palamarchuk, head of the Main Foreign Policy Department of the PMR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Novosti Pridnestrovya News Agency, this year Chisinau has ignored Tiraspol's proposals to hold meetings of working groups on motor transport, economics, and customs issues so far.
As a result, only three meetings of experts were held in the first quarter - in the field of ecology, education, and legal documentation support for citizens. All of them at the request of the Moldovan side, while the proposals of Pridnestrovie, we repeat, were ignored. According to Dmitry Palamarchuk, three meetings is a poor performance. For comparison: in 2021, more than 10 meetings of working groups were held by the end of March. Although, last year was also unproductive in terms of the dynamics and effectiveness of the negotiation process.
It should be recognized that at the current stage this process does not give the desired effect, although agreements, the resolution of issues, and coordination are now in demand more than ever. However, there is no hopeful movement either in terms of shipment or in the activities of enterprises.
And these are just new challenges that have arisen in the two months of Oleg Serebryan's work. The fact that the implementation of the Berlin Plus agreement is at the "minus" mark is superfluous to even mention. It goes without saying. The effectiveness of the dialogue is decreasing every day due to Chisinau`s unwillingness to take responsibility and meet the initiatives of Pridnestrovie.
The last significant industry-based agreement between the parties was reached almost 4 years ago - this is an agreement on the establishment of vehicle registration points dated April 24, 2018. The same agreement is not working currently due to the detention of license plate blanks by Moldova.
Unfortunately, there is no indication yet that Pridnestrovie will have a reliable negotiating partner in Chisinau.
