Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin had a talk with the European Union’s external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and the state-funded official U.S. news service Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty reported on it.

Among the highlights, the “fat man in the palace” is now putting pre-conditions on dialogue:

The Moldovan president also said his country is ready to restart stalled talks with its breakaway Transdniester region “at any moment” — provided the separatist leadership first accepts broad autonomy within Moldova.

So there you have it: It is “my way or the highway“. But, sadly for Moldova, Transdniestria has already clearly shown that it prefers the highway. Over and over again, and in face of much hardship.
Fortunately, the EU is more open minded:

Ferrero-Waldner said the EU is ready to do “absolutely everything” to support the conflict-resolution process with Transdniester. But, she said, it is imperative that the two parties themselves first agree to resume talks.

Now for the ROFL moment of the day:

She said Chisinau must do more to convince the population of Transdniester of the benefits of staying within Moldova, that “they should feel that they want to be in Moldova, and this is something we have discussed very, very clearly indeed.”

I nearly split a gut laughing. There is little chance of the Transdniestrians ever wanting to be part of the world’s most unhappy country. Not even the ethnic Moldovans in Transdniestria have that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Opinion polls in Transdniestria have routinely shown the residents to want to be part of anywhere else except Moldova. Lots of them prefer joining Russia, many would not mind being part of Ukraine, and the current way towards independence scores high marks with all ethnic groups as well - even if, as today, it is a harsh “de facto” and unrecognized-by-the-outside-world independence.

Of course no EU statement is complete without one of the statements that Tiraspol (rightly?) considers cynical and examples of double standards:

Ferrero-Waldner said one positive example of such confidence-building measures has been a drive to convince Transdniestrian businesses to register with Chisinau in exchange for opportunities to export their products to the EU.

Ahem… This is the sort of “convincing” would make the Italian crime families proud. The EU and Moldova gave Transdniestrian businesses an offer they couldn’t refuse: First, we close the border and station EU troops there to make sure that no exports can make it out. Then we put a rule in place that Transdniestrian businesses have to register with Chisinau in order to be allowed to export their products.

Nice use of blunt force and MUSCLE … but “confidence building ?!?”
C’mon, Benita…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Transdniestria musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.