CHISINAU, October 19. /TASS/. The EU hopes that the Moldovan government can resolve the issue of Transnistria in parallel with its integration into the European community, EU Ambassador to Chisinau Janis Mazeiks said.
"We hope that the country's reintegration process will be solved alongside the country's EU accession process. Moldova within its internationally recognized borders, which include the Transnistrian region, is a partner for us," Mazeiks told Moldova’s TV8 channel.
According to him, the Transnistria issue will be included among specific aspects of Moldova's EU accession negotiations. "It is important for us that legal norms are applied equally throughout the territory of the member states; however, this is a topic of a more distant future," the diplomat explained.
Earlier, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that the Transnistria issue could be resolved after the country’s accession to the EU, which she promised would happen in 2030. Former Moldovan president and Party of Socialists leader Igor Dodon criticized Sandu’s statement, saying Sandu was not interested in resolving the Transnistria issue as she feared that the residents of the unrecognized republic seeking closer ties with Russia could influence the outcome of Moldovan elections. He urged the Moldovan authorities to resume dialogue with Transnistria in order to take advantage of the favorable situation and unite the country.
Last year, Moldova, along with Ukraine and Georgia, applied for EU candidate status, which was approved for Chisinau and Kiev. Chisinau assumed a number of commitments to bring domestic legislation up to EU standards and pledged to harmonize its foreign policy.
The authorities of unrecognized Transnistria in Tiraspol blame stagnating negotiations on Chisinau, insisting on the resumption of meetings on all platforms, including the 5+2 format (Moldova, Transnistria, OSCE, Russia, Ukraine and observers from the US and the EU). The most recent meeting was held in Bratislava in 2019, after which the negotiations were suspended.
At first, this was attributed to political instability in Moldova. Later, relations between the two banks of the Dniester deteriorated further after Sandu’s election as president, when she made a number of harsh statements against Tiraspol and refused to meet with Transnistrian President Vadim Krasnoselsky. Dialogue was also discouraged by the situation in Ukraine and political instability in Chisinau.