The article considers promising opportunities and necessary prerequisites needed to form a favourable political context in the sphere of Transdniestrian settlement.
The author concludes that along with the political, socio-economic, legal and cultural components of this process, the foreign policy factor is fundamental to overcoming the negative consequences of the problem. Its multidirectional vectors have often led to stagnation and, in some cases, indirectly facilitated the formation of regressive tendencies in the dialogue between Chisinau and Tiraspol.
In the current conditions the negotiation domain of the Transdniestrian settlement is overloaded by unbalanced political stances of both the immediate participants and the leading global actors. In this context, the task of searching for and establishment of optimal dialogue models and new forms of interaction between them becomes relevant.
Reaching an all-encompassing political compromise between the “West” and the “East” is a necessary condition of progress in the sphere of Transdniestrian settlement. It could result in a consolidated position of the European Union and the Russian Federation expressed, with the involvement of all stakeholders, through common political and socio-economic initiatives. In the framework of this approach, the article brings forward a number of directions for compromise and proposals, the implementation of which could facilitate the solution of major problems of the negotiation process in the sphere of the Transdniestrian settlement.
The points put forward in the article are based on a diverse base of sources including results of a sociological survey conducted in June 2008 on the territory of Transdniestria under the supervision of V. Korobov. The key points of this article were tested as part of the international conferences and expert meetings of Project “IMPACT”.
Проект IMPACT 
