Even seven years ago, the PMR was “successfully established and consolidated” according to OSCE’s resident Transdniestria-expert Claus Neukirch:

Since its declaration of independence on 2 September 1990 the ‘Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic’ (‘PMR’) has successfully established and consolidated its own state-like structure. In Transdniestria, alongside a president and a parliament there are, inter alia, a supreme court and a national bank, which issues its own currency, the Transdniestrian rouble. Border services, the police, internal security and border guards serve alongside the army as important pillars of power. Strong symbols like the constitution, the national anthem, the coat of arms, flags and several monuments commemorating the 1992 war, have strengthened the Transdniestrians ideological base.

Neukirch, whose other writings on Transdniestria show that he is 100% pro-Moldovan and anti-independence, was forced to admit that the small but viable state actually works:

One has to concede, that the ‘PMR’ functions relatively well,

but at the same time, he felt compelled to add a waiver:

at least from the point of view of its rulers and some influential groups, which support them.

Now … if Transdniestria as a state was viable and worked so good in 2001, it works even better now after seven years of reforms, market-liberalizations, a free economy, and the consolidation of a multi party system. So why fix what isn’t broken?

But read the original text here, from the 2001 paper published by the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.

Claus Neukirch is today the Spokesperson/Press and Public Affairs Officer for the OSCE Mission to Chisinau, Moldova.

Prior to his current OSCE job, the German political scientist worked with the International Crisis Group (ICG). He has written a number of papers on how to “solve the Transnistria problem,” where the emphasis has always been on “solving” it within the context of a single unified state against the will of the Transdniestrian population.

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