New unilateral measures against schools teaching in Romanian in the Transnistrian region
Contrary to what was previously agreed in the process of negotiations regarding the Transnistrian settlement on the creation of a predictable and favorable environment for organizing the educational process in 8 schools teaching in Romanian in the region, over time Tiraspol, under various unfounded pretexts, abandoned both the essence and principles of most of the current topics in the educational field. Along with this, Tiraspol has been blocking the convening of meetings of working groups on education, in which experts from both banks of the Nistru River take part, for almost two years.
The subjects of returning the premises to educational institutions or providing other buildings suitable for the study process and other needs, the handing of illegal drafting notifications to young people from the 8 schools who have already been included in military records on the right bank of the Nistru River, or appeals to the administrations of the educational institutions to present nominal lists of the young people in order to be taken into military records or to be enlisted in the so-called force structures, artificial barriers to the free movement of teachers/staff and the free delivery of textbooks, teaching materials and other materials to these schools - all this is only a small part of the problems created by Tiraspol.
Given that the constitutional authorities have repeatedly communicated on all available platforms about the need to ensure access to education, without political interference and unilateral actions on the part of Tiraspol (including from the perspective of the execution of ECHR decisions on this subject, the Catan case and others), we note that in 2024, representatives of the Transnistrian region unilaterally returned to imposing differentiated tariffs for utility services.
More precisely, several educational institutions from those mentioned above had their fees for utilities increased, as follows:
Electricity - from 0.76 lei for one kwh to 1.75 lei for one kwh (for other institutions up to 2.53 lei);
Heating – from 353.18 lei/ 392.2 lei for one Gcal to 937.15 lei/ 943.24 lei for one Gcal (for other institutions up to 1425.4 lei);
Natural gas – from 0.38 lei for 1 m³ to 3.52 lei for 1 m³ (for other institutions up to 6.13 lei);
Water and sewerage – from 14.9 lei for 1 m³ to 23.04 lei for 1 m³.
Tiraspol's unilateral measures against educational institutions teaching in Romanian in the Transnistrian region, applied differently compared to other educational institutions in the region, constitute new abusive and discriminatory actions in the schools' file.
The Bureau for Reintegration Policies and the Ministry of Education and Research will intervene with the necessary support measures, including to compensate the additional expenses incurred and the problems faced by the schools will stay further on the agenda of the negotiation formats regarding the Transnistrian settlement until their final solution.
