Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu, who previously lived in Romania, has abolished knowledge of the Moldovan language as a prerequisite for employment in his ministry.
The scandal occurred after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an announcement on its official website that secretaries of state are required to know both the state Moldovan language and the languages of international communication (Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz, Bulgarian).
This outraged the deputy from the ACUM bloc, part of the ruling coalition, Iurie Renita.
“Even under the most harmful political regimes, things at the Foreign Ministry have not deteriorated so much as to degrade the Romanian language in such a way. Well done! Forward with European integration and the “Moldovan language” to Europe!!!”, Renita wrote on his Facebook.
The minister immediately responded to the criticism and ordered the text of the statement to be changed.
“It is absolutely clear that a person must know the Romanian language, because we do not have another state language,” Popescu said, reports Point.
According to the Moldovan constitution, the state language is “the Moldovan language, functioning on the basis of the Latin script,” but in the Declaration of Independence of Moldova, Romanian is named the state language. Google in Moldova changed the language from Moldavian to Romanian on April 10, 2014. Thus, the Moldovan language (based on Slavic graphics) now exists only in Transnistria.