Following the agreements reached at the meeting of the representatives on political issues held on August 21, 2015, a meeting of the expert (working) groups on railway communication from Pridnestrovie and Moldova took place in the OSCE Mission in Bendery.
During the meeting the experts of the parties in the field of railway transport and customs continued to discuss issues of unilateral changes made by the Republic of Moldova in the technological scheme of the movement of goods in the railway section “Slobodka-Rybnitsa”. Representatives of the working group from the Republic of Moldova acknowledged that there were changes in the scheme of movement of goods, entailing significant costs for a number of economic entities of Pridnestrovie, however, they said that the technology for organization of the movement of goods which was agreed by the appendix to the protocol decision of 30 March 2012, in their opinion, remained without changes.
Along with it, the Moldovan side confirmed the information about sending the telegrams by the railway of Moldova to the Administration of the railways of Ukraine, the result of which was the change in the scheme of movement of goods. Moldova’s subject matter experts announced that the regional railways of Ukraine which decided to ban shipments to the station “Slobodka –export”, misinterpreted the content of telegrams of the railway of Moldova, affecting only the procedure of coordination and planning of goods.
Whereas, the Pridnestrovian experts provided exhaustive information confirming the impossibility of having the so-called “uncoordinate carriages”, including with regard to their customs clearance, referring to which the Moldovan side was trying to justify the restrictive measures taken by Moldova’s railway.
The expert group from Pridnestrovie urged the Moldovan counterparts to reconsider the unilateral decision and return to the status quo situation, which took place prior to 1 August 2015, by sending a corresponding telegram to the railway administration of Ukraine. The Pridnestrevian side also proposed to organize a trilateral meeting of representatives of railways of Ukraine, Republic of Moldova and Pridnestrovie in the near future.
It is planned that the next meeting of railway experts at the invitation of the Moldovan side will take place before the meeting of the representatives on political issues, previously scheduled for September 10, 2015.
They also discussed the prospects of organizing a separate meeting of expert (working) groups on customs cooperation to discuss the existing discrepancies in terms of cooperation between customs services on the exchange of information on imported goods.
