Vehicles from Transnistrian region to receive neutral registration plates

Chisinau, 20 July /MOLDPRES/ - The owners of vehicles from the Transnistrian region will receive neutral plates and will be allowed to the international road traffic as of 1 September 2018, according to a draft law adopted by the parliament in the first reading today.  

The document regards the touring cars and tows attached to them, motorcycles and bicycles with auxiliary engine, owned by private persons with permanent residents in the administrative and territorial units from the left bank of Dniester and Bender city and some categories of legal entities registered at the competent authorities of Moldova.  

The state secretary at the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry, Serghei Bucataru, unveiled the document in the parliament’s plenum. “The registration of the transport means will be made by representatives of the Public Services Agency, at specialized points, placed in the Rabnita and Tiraspol cities, based on the confirmative documents which show the residence of the person and the right to property, accompanied by the applicant’s declaration on his/her own responsibility on the truthfulness of the information provided,” Bucataru said.  

The lawmakers of the Liberal Party criticized the document and described it as “a unilateral concession on behalf of Chisinau, which undermines the integrity of Moldova.”  

The Communists’ leader, Vladimir Voronin, welcomed the draft. “All people living in the Transnistrian region are citizens of Moldova and we are obliged to create them more facilities. We believe that this decision will lead to the consolidation of the two banks of Dniester river,” Voronin said.   

For his part, an MP of the Democratic Party (PDM), Corneliu Dudnic, stressed that “during 25 years, there have been discussions for achieving positive results in the Transnistrian conflict; yet, as late as now, the Chisinau authorities got these important results.”  

Under the document, the aforementioned vehicles will get registration plates and certificates of neutral model, without the payment of the rights of import and obligatory bills set according to the law on the fund of support of residents, with the obligatory presentation of the customs documents. The transport means will be registered no matter their exploitation term. One car will not be able to have a neutral number and a Transnistrian one simultaneously. The residents from the left bank of Dniester ruling to preserve the Transnistrian number will be able to travel by the concerned vehicles only in Moldova.  

At the same time, the transport means registered can be sold to persons who reside in the settlements from the left bank of Dniester and Bender city or to legal entities carrying out entrepreneurial activity in the administrative and territorial units from the left bank of Dniester and Bender municipality without paying the import rights. Yet, this sale is made only at subdivisions of the Public Services Agency from Tiraspol and Rabnita, based on the confirmative documents which prove the residence of the person and the property right.     

The decision on the participation of the vehicles from the Transnistrian region in the international road traffic was signed by the political representatives of Chisinau and Tiraspol in the process of negotiations on the Transnistrian settlement on 24 April 2018.  

(Reporter A. Ciobanu, editor L. Alcaza)