Dodon: Moldovan people will protect their language

President of Moldova Igor Dodon says he will not allow amending the constitution to make the Romanian a state language.

An initiative to give the status of the state language to Romanian was drafted by the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova and signed by 35 of the 101 Moldovan MPs. The draft will be submitted to the parliament for consideration. It can come into force if two thirds of the MPs vote for it. The president notes that it won’t be easy to win support of 67 parliamentarians.

“But even if there are so many traitors, I will have two attempts to block the law and I will certainly use them. I will make the process of emending the constitution at least by 1.5 months longer,” he promises.

If the parliamentary majority will “again try using the levers of the Constitutional Court controlled by it to exert pressure, this will be the issue for which I will raise the whole Moldovan nation in order to protect the native language and our dignity,” Dodon continues.

“We must protect our mother language for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Whatever it costs for us,” the Moldovan president concludes.

On October 31, Moldova’s Constitutional Court ruled that “the Moldovan language” can be substituted by “the Romanian language” in the constitution. Igor Dodon previously called the draft “undermining Moldova’s sovereignty.”