Another forgotten conflict Nov 13th 2008 |

Another forgotten conflict

Nov 13th 2008 | CHISINAU AND TIRASPOL
From The Economist print edition

Good behaviour in Moldova’s separatist dispute reaps meagre rewards

“LET us live in poverty, but in a country at peace,” says Vasily Sova, Moldova’s negotiator with its breakaway territory of Transdniestria, when asked about the billions lavished on Georgia after its August war with Russia. Unlike the belligerent Georgia, Moldova has taken a gentle approach to its Russian-backed separatists, and it is not trying to join NATO. Yet it is barely nearer than Georgia to a deal over lost territory.

Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, went to Moldova this week to push a new initiative. Russia does not recognise Transdniestria’s independence, but it wants to keep troops there, a condition all other parties reject. The Moldovan and Transdniestrian leaders have not met recently. Moldova’s president, Vladimir Voronin, was turned back when he tried to visit his home village in Transdniestria. Mr Voronin called Transdniestria’s leader, Igor Smirnov, “an evil force who has turned his region into a festering wound on the body of Moldova”.

Yet the dispute has none of the deep hostilities of the Caucasus. Trade across the Dniester is flourishing. The Transdniestrian football team, Sheriff, tops the Moldovan league. Tiraspol is something of a museum of Soviet nostalgia, with its Lenin statue and Karl Marx street. But Sergei Cheban, head of the foreign-affairs committee in the Transdniestrian parliament, tries to be reasonable. Of Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he says “we do not need that kind of recognition,” holding out the chance of a sovereignty deal with Moldova. The European Union, just 100km (60 miles) away, has both carrots and sticks at its disposal. The promise of trade with the EU has enticed some 500 Transdniestrian companies to register in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau. Against that, Europe’s border assistance mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), based in Odessa, is trying hard to prevent smuggling in the area. Data turned up by EUBAM suggests that most rumours of arms- and drug-smuggling are mythical. But there is a lively and lucrative, if more banal, trade in which Ukrainian and Moldovan businessmen exploit the black hole of Transdniestria to dodge customs duties on cars or chicken. In 2006, EUBAM has found, the poor folk of Transdniestria nominally ate 12 times as much chicken per head as Germans.

A settlement of the Transdniestrian dispute would nudge both Moldova and Ukraine closer to Europe. It could also win Russia a friendly outpost on the edge of the EU. Yet Russian stubbornness has been matched only by European indifference. If both sides want a more constructive relationship, as the EU’s decision this week to restart partnership talks with Russia suggests, Transdniestria might be a good place to begin.