[Transdniestria is an unrecognised republic in Moldova, with the centre in Tiraspol. The border lies along the Dniester river, on whose east bank the recalcitrant republic is.]
As we know, the May session of international mediators-Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE-called the Parties to follow those mediators' initiatives for a draft basic document. There are major difference in what the involved Parties are coming out with. Tiraspol is dead set on full equality, while Chisinau insists on an asymmetrical federation.
Much has changed since 1992 [when the conflict flared up]. The collapse of the Soviet Union became final and irreversible. However slowly and reluctantly, the Transdniestrian top realised that, if the status quo ante were to survive, the separatist republic would turn into the world's pariah-an abandoned islet of an empire that was no longer-and that Russia had no objective chance to replace the Soviet Union.
Now, if things take a contrasting turn, and a reunited Moldova joins the European community, fine prospects will open to the east Dniester bank. The republic will gain legitimacy, and its leaders find their niche in the political and business elite of a young European country. There are far more benefits, too. So the mid-1990s got the Transdniestrian top sharply reducing efforts to militarise its ideology.Slowly but surely, the European spirit was advancing to oust stale Soviet ways.
As for the newly independent post-Soviet Moldova, the laboured progress of its statehood gradually played down pro-Romanian moods, which had been a pain in the neck of the Transdniestrian opposition. "Moldovisation" was a term Moldovan political experts coined for the new trends that came to replace pro-Romanian. The conflict, underlying which was a clash of pro-Soviets with pro-Romanians, is changing its purport. The Parties have come to basic accord for a future federation, though Chisinau sees it as asymmetrical, to provide its own leading part. Tiraspol, on the contrary, insists on a treaty that would install equal partners on either Dniester bank to come as co-founders of an updated Republic of Moldova-which, in the Transdniestrian political mind, will be not unlike a joint-stock company.
If it comes true, the federation will be rather an artificial structure, on the pattern of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose blueprints appeared in the Dayton understandings. There is only one big difference-interethnic clashes on the Dniester have never been so bitter as in the Balkans.
It will take thoroughly unconventional ideological patterns to put an end to the Dniester apartheid-suffice it to mention humanitarian education radically changed in secondary school, and a pioneer concept of statehood proceeding from an ethnically triune Transdniestria, possibly, extended to involve the Gagauz.
Now, Transdniestria has economic and managerial communities whose cream is hardly any less efficient than the Moldovan. In fact, it is even stronger in certain respects. Chisinau is to meet that elite not as Little Brother but an equal partner who will certainly retain all benefits it acquired within the years of dubious and disputed independence. Only after that will bridge-building across the Dniester have any chance to get on an ideological footing.
