Dodon blew the dust off the dried-up election cake for Russian speakers
Moldovan President Igor Dodon promises to return compulsory Russian language learning to Moldovan schools.
He stated this during a video conference with his subscribers on Facebook, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“In the early 90s, when there were politicians in power similar to whom they are now eager to become president, this problem arose in Moldova. Slogans were heard that led to problems on the Dniester and almost blew up the situation in Gagauzia. But then we agreed that Moldova is a multinational country, and Russian will be the language of interethnic communication.
I insisted on this - the Russian language has a special status. We have document flow in two languages. We must do everything possible to ensure that medication instructions are in two languages,” Dodon said.
At the same time, he believes that the state should launch a state program for studying the Moldovan language.
“But a third of our population is Russian-speaking. Russian language is the language of interethnic communication. I think it was a mistake when 5-6 years ago one of the current candidates for the presidency (Maia Sandu, when she was the Minister of Education - ed.) changed the legislation and abolished the Russian language as a compulsory language to study. Now this lady is making leaflets in Russian and has started speaking Russian. Now she needs their votes.
Therefore, I believe that the Russian language should be returned as a compulsory study in the school curriculum. Knowledge of Russian is a plus for us. I’m not afraid to talk about it, it’s in my program. It is necessary that, as before, two foreign languages are studied in schools: Russian and one more to choose from,” Dodon said.
Let us note that during his previous term, Dodon did nothing to strengthen the position of the Russian language in the country. It was under him that in 2018, the Constitutional Court of Moldova recognized the law “On the functioning of languages on the territory of the MSSR”, which recognized the Russian language as a language of interethnic communication, as “outdated”. Such a court decision is “equivalent to its reversal.”
In June, the Moldovan parliament did not put on the agenda a bill to lift restrictions on the retransmission of Russian television programs, so as not to split the ruling coalition. On February 12, 2018, a law came into force in Moldova, according to which the broadcast of information, analytical, news and military programs of television channels belonging to countries that allegedly have not ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television is prohibited. Russian TV channels fell under this restriction.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.