There are states on the European continent that have national minorities and majorities in their composition and that managed to implement methods to socially include the minorities. Moldova must find a model for cooperating with the minorities typical of the internal situation, not import it from outside, considers the Ambassador of Romania in Chisinau Marius Lazurca.

In the public debate “Romania as a model for Moldova’s European course”, held by IPN News Agency in partnership with Radio Moldova, the ambassador said that the expression of multinational state has been lately more frequently used as ordinary as if all the states are multinational and, if they are not, they should tend to be so. “As if this model is the only possible for the states to function harmoniously. Things do not stand exactly like this,” he stated.

Marius Lazurca said there are EU founding states that do not recognize the existence of minorities on their territory and for which the civilian nation represents the basic value of the state. Thus, all the citizens, regardless of the language they speak at home and their religion, are called to subscribe to a certain model of civism that is based on a particular culture and langue and adherence to this model is regarded as a privilege. All the citizens have the right to be members of this civic community, regardless of the linguistic options in the own home, but a common language and culture is what prevails in society.

There are also confederative states where the communities administer by themselves the territories and delegate only a part of the local powers to the central authorities. “There are nuances when we speak about Moldova as a multinational state. Any state must keep civil peace, harmony and a balance between all the people. There are very different solutions and Moldova has the right to find its own solution, without importing it from outside,” said the diplomat.

As regards the relations between the majority nation and the minorities, Marius Lazurca said that Romania has the experience of social peace, except for small negative incidents witnessed at the start of the 1990s. “We have 20 recognized minorities that enjoy such guaranteed rights as bilingualism in their settlements, access to justice and to public posts in their own language. The party that represents the Hungarian minority in Romania is constantly present not only in the Parliament of Romania as a result of direct elections, but also in the European Parliament. On the other hand, Romania continues to be a national unitary state and we, the Romanians, are very dedicated to this principle,” said Marius Lazurca.

He noted that the majority population of Romania is making effort to create a balance between the constitutional reality of the provision concerning the national unitary state and the rights of the national minorities without making this major political value of the Romanians the focus of attention. A just, optimal balance must exist between the need of the minorities to keep their own inheritance and traits and the need of the majority to make sure that these minorities are loyal to the state. “There are certain valuable aspects in Romania’s experience of which Moldova can make use in this respect,” stated the Romanian ambassador.

As to the relations between Romania and Moldova, Marius Lazurca underlined that there is no anti-Moldovenism in Romania or NGOs that would live programmatically based on a message aimed against Moldova, or political parties that would gather votes from the Moldovan danger.

“That’s why for us it is very surprising to see that there are boys in Moldova who say that they speak Moldovan. I’m not against, but why should they be against Romania? My grandmother also speaks Moldovan and this is charming. But she is fully Romanian and would be surprised to find out that those who speak Moldovan are not Romanians,” said the official.

He also said that the anti-Romanianism in Moldova brings publicity and votes. Romania is patient and understanding, but, if Moldova wants to have good relations with Romania, it should solve this problem and should not wait for time to deal with this upsetting Soviet inheritance.

The debate “Romania as a model for Moldova’s European course” is the 30th of the series of debates “Development of political culture in public debates” that are organized by IPN in concert with Radio Moldova and are supported by Germany’s Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.