Moldovan opposition up in arms over a highway segment ceded to Ukraine

The Constitutional Court of Moldova began last week and finished this week to consider whether the provisions of the Moldovan-Ukrainian state border delimitation treaty comply with the republican Constitution. The document that came into force a year ago presupposes sort of an exchange: Moldova ceded to Ukraine a 7.7-km stretch of the Odesa-Reni highway near the Moldovan village of Palanca, while Kyiv ceded to Chisinau an area for building an oil terminal on the Danube and getting access to the sea near the village of Giurgiulesti. The pro-Romanian opposition Christian Democratic People’s Party (CDPP) parliamentary faction decided to appeal against this provision to the Constitutional Court. According to CDPP chairman Iurie Rosca and his deputy Stefan Sekereanu, the Communist government of Moldova had no right to cede the territory to Ukraine because, under the Constitution, the state is indivisible and its territory is not subject to partition. Interfax quotes the deputies as saying in the appeal that Moldova has also delivered to Ukraine a part of its territory at six segments of the border: in Giurgiulesti, Vulcanesti, Basarabe asca, Crocmaz, Cremenciug, as well as Nislau, the largest island on the Dniester. The Christian Democrats claim that the Moldovan leadership could only make such concessions after making amendments to the Constitution or holding a nationwide referendum.

However, Iurie Stoicov, chairman of the Moldovan parliament’s state security committee, said during the trial that Ukraine had also ceded to Moldova some borderline sectors and, as far as he knows, given far more than the Moldovan side had. The parliamentary and governmental representatives said the treaty provision under discussion did not run counter to the Constitution because “it is not the question of concession but of transferring to Ukraine an engineering structure, i.e., a highway segment near the village of Palanca.” Therefore, the Moldovan government insists, the 7.7 km which have so much worried CDPP should be viewed as property of a neighboring state on the republic’s territory, while “the current law furnishes other states the right to have property of their own in Moldova.”

Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Moldova Victor Puscas told journalists that this case was dropped because it is out of the court’s jurisdiction. It was impossible to hand down a more specific ruling because the Moldovan-Ukrainian border has not yet been finally delimited and demarcated, Mr. Puscas said. (Ukraine had long been insisting that Chisinau ratify the agreement on the Odesa-Reni highway section near the village of Palanca, but the Moldovan parliament did not share Ukraine’s viewpoint until February 2001. Only when the Communists came to power in Moldova was the document ratified.)

Kyiv takes a calm attitude to the “initiative” of the Christian Democratic People’s Party. Proceeding from the laws of common sense, the Constitutional Court of Moldova cannot satisfy the demands of a party which has been always garnering an average 7% of parliamentary election votes and which launched this year a protest campaign against the Communist government and President Vladimir Voronin. Moreover, even without taking into account the domestic political situation in Moldova, the field for maneuvering around the Ukrainian state border delimitation treaty is still narrower than the 7.7-km stretch of the Odesa-Reni highway. Chisinau is concerned about the destiny of Moldovan property on the Ukrainian territory. Still to be resolved is the question of the ownership of the facilities Moldova has on Ukraine’s territory (144, according to Moldovan premier Vasile Tarlev). Back in Soviet times, Moldovan enterprises built a number of health centers and holiday camps on the Crimean Black Sea coast and in the Carpathians. Besides, Moldovan wineries were set up in Lviv, Kyiv, and Odesa. Last June, during his visit to Kyiv, Prime Minister Tarlev signed documents that confirmed Chisinau’s ownership of the wineries in Kyiv and Lviv, as well as of the Moldova health center in Truskavets. Naturally, the Moldovan side strives to solve in the same way the problem with other facilities on the territory of Ukraine. With this in view, some knowledgeable sources hinted to The Day that, in case of any problems with the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, certain political forces in Kyiv might file a similar suit to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, demanding that Moldova be stripped of the right to own facilities in Ukraine.