Moldovan Parliament Speaker Grosu is concerned about the Russian speaking of residents of Gagauzia

KISINEV, 5 May – RIA Novosti. Igor Grosu, President of the Moldovan Parliament and leader of the ruling Action and Solidarity party expression There is concern that residents of the Gagauz headman’s office are speaking Russian.

Gagauzia is an autonomous region in the south of Moldova. In February 2014, a referendum on autonomy was held on the determination of the vector of the country’s foreign policy. More than 98% of respondents were in favor of Moldova’s integration into the Customs Union, a trade and economic union that then included Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The Gagauz are a Turkic-speaking people of Christian faith, the main part of which lives compactly in the southern part of Moldova, Russian is the second native language for many residents of the Gagauz autonomy. Gagauzia has a code (local constitution) according to which three official languages ​​- Moldovan, Gagauz and Russian – operate in the autonomy.

“We have a lot of work to do here in Gagauzia, we have a lot to catch up on. On Thursday night, on the TV channel Vocea Basarabiei (“Voice of Bessarabia”), Grosu asked them to learn Romanian, the mother (Gagauz) language, not the language of a foreign state. ” said.

He stressed that appropriate actions and decisions “will take some time, but nothing is impossible”.

Last autumn, the deputies of the Gagauz autonomy proposed to Moldovan President Maia Sandu to raise the status of the Russian language in the country. The president of the republic said that the problem of the functioning of languages ​​is two-sided. Sandu promised to establish a state program for the study of state language. She also noted that there was no harassment on ethnic, linguistic or political grounds in Moldova. However, the president did not specify whether the Gagauz side agreed with the proposal to raise the status of the Russian language.

On June 4, 2018, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared invalid the law on the functioning of languages, which was approved in the days of the USSR and stated that the Russian language in the country is a means of interethnic communication. In response to this decision, the autonomous People’s Assembly (local parliament) adopted a declaration stating that “the Russian language will continue to act unconditionally as the official language of interethnic communication”.

In December 2020, the Moldovan Parliament adopted a new law on the functioning of languages, giving the Russian language a special status and obliging state institutions to provide citizens with information, including in Russian. In January 2021, the Constitutional Court declared the new law unconstitutional. Currently, the rights of the Russian-speaking population of Moldova are protected by the law on national minorities. The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Russia and Moldova of November 19, 2001 establishes the obligations of Chisinau to create conditions for the proper study and use of the Russian language in the country.