Transnistria Solution: Tax Haven or Condominium

Transnistria is a long strip of territory, located to the right of the Dniester, with a population of 460,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom are Ukrainians and Russians. After the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the self-proclaimed local leadership did not agree to be part of the Republic of Moldova, which declared its independence in 1991. After the Moldovan-Transnistrian War (1991–1992), it became an autonomous republic without international recognition. Transnistria did not belong to Moldova, except for a short period of time. At the 1919 Peace Conference in Paris, the Romanian kingdom united with Bessarabia (the current Republic of Moldova), but did not claim this territory either. After the Soviets established the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, Transnistria was ceded to this new artificially formed state by V.I. Lenin.

Through the secret Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, on August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union wrested Bessarabia from the Romanian Kingdom. The Antonescu regime allied itself with Hitler’s for the historic desire to liberate this ancestral land. Some historians claim that the great mistake of the Marshal was crossing the Dniester. Once Romanian territory was liberated, they would not have had to march to Stalingrad, where the Romanian army lost over 140,000 Romanian soldiers. In the period immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Moscow, weakened economically and militarily, preferred to control strips of band-aid on the nationalist wound. It is known that all Eastern European countries broke away from the USSR through patriotic movements, which led to independence: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Republic of Moldova.

Transnistria is a kind of Kaliningrad, a Russian oblast, which has no border with the Russian Federation. Its geographical position is strategically and militarily advantageous for Russia. It is an enclave between Poland and Lithuania. In the port of the Baltic Sea, the Russians have a serious naval fleet. Russian nuclear missiles, based in Kaliningrad, are a short distance from major European capitals. In the past, the region belonged to Prussia, but the Soviet Union depopulated it with Germans. The warning of someone named Ciorba, an opponent of the separatist regime in Tiraspol but not persecuted by the local militias, inflamed the topic and the Western fear that Putin wants to use the separatist trend to annex the region. They control it through representatives. It does not need a military landing. If the international agenda topic “Transnistria” has been artificially raised, perhaps it would be of interest for the Western world to take seriously the 5-2 or 1-1 format regarding the international negotiations regarding the status of Transnistria.

More than ever, Romanian diplomacy has the chance to resume dialogue with the Ukrainian side for the retrocession of Transnistria to Ukraine, as it was in 1923, in exchange for Buceag, the southern area of Buceag, with the cities of Chilia, Izmail, and Cetatea Albă, historical Romanian communities since the 14th century. The exchange with international assistance would be fair from the point of view of history but also of international law, which was violated by the Bolshevik regime. It is in the interest of Europe and Romania to complete the 5+2 Format, also known as 5+2 talks, 5+2 negotiations, or the 5+2 process—that diplomatic negotiation platform, abandoned due to the war in Ukraine, intended to find a solution to the conflict between Moldova and the unrecognised state of Transnistria.

The Republic of Moldova will not be able to join NATO and will not be able to integrate into the European Union until it resolves the situation of the autonomous republic. It is in the interest of the Maia Sandu administration to get rid of a territory that only causes tensions. The Romanian population is a minority in Transnistria, but in Buceag it is much more numerous. If peace diplomacy is slow to present its doves of peace, it is in the interest of Brussels and Washington to cut off Moscow’s intention to establish a new Kaliningrad on the EU coast. If the historically justified exchanges of territories fail, a condomimium can be constituted, under international protection, in an area administered by several powers until a final solution accepted by all parties is found.

At the moment, Moscow does not seem interested in the annexation of Transnistria. Maybe after conquering Odesa, he will change his vision. Transnistrians like Europe more, but it continues to be a rusty nail in the integration picture of the Republic of Moldova in the EU. The dream of the political and financial elites of Transnistria is to remain a fiscal paradise, a kind of Andorra or Lichenstein. Why not Luxembourg, on the edge of a democratic empire? He would not return to Ukraine, either. A formula accepted by all parties can still be found.

By Marius Ghilezan