Moldovan government approves the change of official language to Romanian
The Moldovan government approved a bill to amend the Constitution and change the official language from Moldovan to Romanian, Interfax reports.
According to the bill, it was proposed to replace the phrase in the 13th article of the Constitution that says “Moldovan language functioning on the basis of Latin writing” with “Romanian language.”
None of the members of the government were opposed to the initiative.
On December 5, 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the state language is Romanian. The reason for this decision was the conclusion of the Constitutional Court that the Declaration on the Independence of the Republic of Moldova says that the Romanian language is the state language, and that supersedes the Constitution, which specifies the Moldovan language. In accordance with this, a group of deputies initiated the bill on making an amendment to the Constitution. On October 31, the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of this initiative.
President of Moldova Igor Dodon said the change in the official name of the language from Moldovan to Romanian is “inadmissible.” According to him, after the change of power, “unlawful decisions of the current Constitutional Court will be reviewed.” He also expressed confidence that there will not be the needed 67 votes in the parliament for the adoption of this amendment.
Differences between the Romanian and Moldovan languages began to arise in the nineteenth century. During the Soviet era, in the first half of the last century, these differences increased. However, since the 1950s, the process has reversed, Moldovan and Romanian converged, and now they are virtually indistinguishable.
Two days ago, the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the president of the country must be non-partisan.