The Success of Sanctions by Giumelli Francesco;

Author:Giumelli, Francesco;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

The EU in Transnistria: A Strategy of Divide and Influence1

EU restrictive measures against the leaders of Transnistria were imposed for the first time in 2003. At the time, the president of this separatist region of the Republic of Moldova, which constitutes one of the frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet space, and other members of the government were prevented from entering the EU because of their ‘lack of cooperation to promote a political settlement of the conflict’ (EU 2003). In September 2010, with the conflict still in stalemate and the end of the crisis nowhere in sight, the Council decided to suspend sanctions. A few months after the election of a new president in Transnistria, the sanctions regime had not been altered. A simplistic view would lead one to think that sanctions were suspended when they were supposed to be maintained, and they were maintained when they should have been lifted. The classical approach describes a schizophrenic use of restrictive measures by the Council, but the methodology adopted here clarifies that sanctions can be part of a strategy to divide a society and influence its internal dynamics.

The objective of this chapter is to analyse how the EU has relied on sanctions against the leadership of Transnistria to pursue its foreign policy objectives. While many questioned the utility of the EU restrictive measures, either referring to the failure to bring Smirnov back to the negotiating table (Popescu 2004: 8), or pointing to the damage to the EU’s credibility as an honest broker (Vahl 2005: 4), this chapter argues that the travel ban is part of a long-term strategy that contributes positively to the resolution of the conflict. The case of the EU and the conflict in Transnistria is revealing since multiple actions were undertaken by Brussels to settle the conflict. In a strategy of divide et adduc (divide and influence), travel bans have helped to limit the capabilities of targets to claim independence and their power position in Transnistrian society. The second lesson is that overly optimistic expectations about the effects sanctions can produce are not justified. In the debate based on the classical approach, it was written that ‘[we cannot ask for] the pistol to inflict damage of which only the cannon is capable’ (Daoudi and Dajani 1983: 168), and is also true of targeted sanctions. Travel bans alone cannot resolve international crises, but they can be a useful component of a wider approach that avoids a number of unintended consequences.

This chapter follows the structure of the previous ones. The first section presents the background to the crisis that triggered the imposition of sanctions. The second offers an evaluation of the overall policy of the EU towards the crisis. The third section tries to place sanctions within the larger foreign policy context. The fourth attempts to evaluate the effects of the travel ban on the leadership of Transnistria and offers some concluding remarks about EU restrictive measures.

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