Politics

​EU FLAG REMOVED FROM IGOR DODON PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE

27 december, 2016

The Republic of Moldova’s new President Igor Dodon was sworn in last Friday afternoon, but already on the following morning the flag of the European Union disappeared from the facade of the Presidential Office.

The journalists, who came to the Office for Dodon’s first presidential press briefing and for the presentation of his advisers, noticed that the EU flag had been removed from its habitual flagpole to the right of the Office door, leaving the Moldovan flag all alone to the left of the entry.

The past weekend brought yet another noteworthy change – in the official presidential website that is run in three languages. Its English and Russian-language versions remained unchanged, but the Romanian language version (RO) was changed into Moldovan-language (MD) version. Presidential Press Secretary Ion Ceban stated to your Infotag correspondent: “The President respects the Constitution and calls everybody to follow this example”.

According to the 1994 Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, the state language in Moldova is the Moldovan language based on the Latin alphabet (Article 13). However, on December 5, 2013 the Constitutional Court arrived at a conclusion that the state language’s correct name is Romanian because in the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, which is a component of the Constitution, the language is called “Romanian”. This opinion is strongly supported by practically all linguists here.

The Moldovan language based on the Cyrillic alphabet was converted into the Latin script in 1989. After the declaration of Moldova’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the language started to be taught in all educational institutions as “Romanian”. The advocates of the two language names recognize that there is no difference whatever between Moldovan and Romanian.

In 2002, President Voronin made an attempt to cancel the word “Romanian” from the names of lyceums and other educational institutions, to rename the language back into Moldovan, and to remove “The History of the Romanians” discipline from curricula. In response to that attempt, the Christian Democratic Popular Party then organized massive street protesting (with noisy tent camps before main official buildings and in the middle of the busy main street in Chisinau) that lasted several months. Eventually, the Communist authorities gave up their language renaming intention.

Igor Dodon was elected to the supreme post on November 13 at the second round of presidential election. Among his main objectives as president he has declared consolidation of Moldova’s statehood and neutrality and protection of the Orthodoxy and of the Moldovan identity [as opposed to the Romanian identity]. In the run-up to the election, he stated an intention to denounce the EU-Moldova Association Agreement or to introduce substantial amendments into it. After the election, however, he recognized that the President has in fact no plenary powers for this.

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