Next month Ukraine and Romania will start inspecting their state border line. Kyiv and Bucharest have not carried out this routine (by international standards) work for more than 20 years. By all accounts, the never-ending disagreements between the two countries have been an obstacle to this. Now bilateral relations seem to have turned the corner. Yet, it is still unclear how long this “honeymoon” will last. The Day asked Borys TREHUBOV, assistant to the head of the State Border Security Service, to tell us about the “new horizons” of Ukrainian-Romanian cooperation.
“What has already been done, as far as the border with Romania is concerned?”
“We have reviewed all the required organizational and technical documents. We started this work last November. The mixed Ukrainian-Romanian border commission sat for a third time in Chernivtsi on May 17-20, when we finally decided what documents were to be examined jointly. We also issued a relevant instruction and discussed the work order, composition, and main objectives of the mixed working groups. The work itself is expected to begin on June 10 at the latest.”
“There has been a change of power in both Romania and Ukraine. Romania has also appointed a new border security chief. Could you sum up the first results of this cooperation?”
“I can say our cooperation is gaining strength. The replacement of Romania’s border security chief has not in principle changed the attitude to our cooperation. Everything is proceeding normally: there is mutual understanding and even mutual assistance.”
“The construction of a navigable canal on the Danube hasn’t been mentioned lately. Not so long ago the border guards had some problems over this issue. Can you say this problem has been resolved?”
“There is no active work so far on the Danube, owing to springtime flooding. Romania has had very heavy floods this year. We are now doing surveys to assess the navigation situation, but we’ve stopped short of construction. As for border security, there are no problems at all. Everything’s OK. We are constantly informing the Romanian side about planned actions. They know when and how tasks will be fulfilled. For example, gauging was done by mutual agreement.”
“Still, have the two sides come to terms about the border’s marine sector? After all, the dispute over the demarcation of the Black Sea continental shelf and exclusive zones has been referred to the International Court in the Hague.”
“The Romanian and Ukrainian delegations resumed consultations on this issue (demarcation — Ed.) after Romania’s foreign minister visited Ukraine. They have already had one round of talks. Yet, neither side has withdrawn its lawsuit. No one can predict the further course of events. Maybe, we will manage to reach an out-of-court settlement, although I am not quite sure of this. Still, negotiations of any kind are a positive sign. Experts are going to meet in the nearest future to discuss the demarcation of the Black Sea continental shelf and exclusive maritime zones.”
