Transnistria and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement a little stone that overturns a great wain

The purpose of this report is to provide an impact assessment of the future Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) between the Republic of Moldova and European Union on the transnistria region and the relations between Chisinau and Tiraspol. The study concludes that the optimal solution is for EU to accept the implementation of DCFTA on the entire territory of Moldova, while ensuring a more rigorous control over all goods which enter and exit the transnistria region. At the same time, we emphasize that the best strategic approach for Chișinău and Bruxelles is that the European integration of Moldova should be treated as a precondition for country’s reintegration and not vice versa. In this way, the reintegration will be strictly guided by region’s economic elites interested in the extension of the market access EU, which soon or later will contradict and even prevail over the incentives of political elites from the transnistrian region.