Carrot and stick: Blockade Transnistria receives help not only from Russia

The Parliament of Transnistria adopted in the first reading a bill that should simplify interaction with donors. The unrecognized republic under blockade, which is considered to be an “outpost of Russia,” has long been receiving help from abroad – not only from the East, but also from the West.

For about ten years, the EU program “Support for Confidence Building Measures”, funded by the EU and implemented by UNDP in Moldova, has been operating on both banks of the Dniester.

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The West allocates money for the restoration of medical, cultural, sports, educational institutions, repair of utility networks, street lighting, environmental protection, and integration of disabled people into society.

Since 2009, the European Union has invested more than 20 million euros under this program in the territory of the former Moldavian SSR, more than 80 social facilities have been restored, some of them in Transnistria.

Here are just a few examples - overhaul of sports centers in the city of Grigoriopol and in the village of Parkany, repair and re-equipment of the outpatient clinic in the village of Chobruchi, restoration of the water supply system in the village of Nezvertailovka, renovation of kindergartens in the villages of Tsybulevka and Ternovka, arrangement of a school canteen in the village of Butor, reconstruction of the children's chess center in Rybnitsa. New equipment worth half a million dollars was purchased for maternity hospitals in Transnistria.

Now the next stage of the European Union program is underway. At the beginning of this year, the organizers invited local administrations to submit new project proposals.

Each application can qualify for funding in the amount of up to 80 thousand euros, and if the project is submitted jointly by settlements from the right and left banks of the Dniester - up to 125 thousand euros.

Transnistria, at the level of local administrations, is quite actively involved in the program, although the official Transnistrian press practically does not highlight this topic: in the republic they prefer not to talk about how much money the EU has invested in local hospitals, gyms, cultural centers and kindergartens.

Helping Russia is a completely different matter: this topic has always been widely covered. The Russian Federation is implementing a number of large humanitarian projects in Transnistria. Since the end of 2007, it has been directing funds to pay monthly bonuses to all local pensioners, regardless of citizenship. This is almost 150 thousand people. Currently, the additional payment is 150 Transnistrian rubles (about $9). Pensioners consider this a good help: the average pension in Transnistria is equivalent to 82 dollars.

Local agricultural producers are taking advantage of cheap loans from technical assistance funds that Russia provided to Transnistria after a severe drought in 2007. Then funds in the amount of about 9 million dollars were received from the Russian Federation for lending to farmers. A special reserve was formed, a mechanism for distributing repayable funds. Agricultural firms can receive a loan after the previous borrowers return the money. Funds to support the industry are issued in Russian currency in 15 areas at symbolic interest.

In 2012, the PMR began implementing a large-scale social and humanitarian program through the Russian ANO “Eurasian Integration”, the work of which was personally supervised by the Deputy Prime Minister, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Transnistria Dmitry Rogozin. At the expense of Russian money, several ambulances were purchased, a dozen social facilities were built and put into operation, including a school in the village of Tashlyk, the Republican Moldavian Theoretical Lyceum Complex, kindergartens in Tiraspol, Rybnitsa, Bendery, the village of Suclea, the building of the medical faculty of PSU, concrete-mixing plant. The objects were opened with pomp.

The project, however, was never completed. With the change of power and the resignation of Yevgeny Shevchuk from the post of president, Russian construction projects in the PMR were frozen, the Tiraspol representative office of the Eurasian Integration was folded, and dozens of Pridnestrovian construction companies did not receive payment for the work performed. Now the republic is thinking about how to complete the construction of the pediatric hospital of the Republican Center for Mother and Child, an anti-tuberculosis clinic in Bendery and a school in Rybnitsa on its own.

Transnistria, by the way, is actively investing in infrastructure renewal in 2018–2019. Despite the deficit budget, a Capital Investment Fund has been created in the republic, from which urgent repairs and restoration of schools, kindergartens, hospitals and the construction of new social facilities are financed. Recently it was announced that preparations were being made for the construction of affordable housing for public sector workers - an entire microdistrict in Tiraspol.

Infrastructure is good, but the bad thing is that both donors and the state allocate funds mainly to the social sphere and invest little in assets and new production. Social facilities place an additional burden on the republic’s budget, without solving the problem of its development.

“Working with international humanitarian funds and organizations is traditional for Pridnestrovie,” Anatoly Dirun, head of the Tiraspol School of Political Studies, told PolitNavigator, commenting on the bill approved by parliament. – In this regard, the desire of the deputy corps to optimize the work of the bodies supervising interaction with international structures seems clear and logical. At the same time, humanitarian aid is not an investment, the attraction of which is one of the government’s strategic objectives. Humanitarian assistance is a reflection of the problems that we have and which we need to work to solve.”

The expert also suggested that since the bill speaks of “the need to attract gratuitous assistance to the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic,” then it will be necessary to approve a plan for attracting such assistance, listen to those responsible for this direction, etc., that is, go along the path of creating new bureaucratic procedures.