Moldovan Parliament split over which occasion to celebrate today

The parliamentary Opposition celebrated today the 90th anniversary of Bessarabia’s Union with Romania. Speaking at the opening of today’s Parliament meeting, the president of the National Liberal Party, Vitalia Pavlicenco, congratulated all the MPs on the occasion of the anniversary and invited Speaker Marian Lupu to follow her example. The Speaker, in turn, has reminded in his opening speech that March 27 is the World Theater Day, congratulating the parliamentarians on this occasion. MP Gheorghe Susarenco of the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) has found the Speaker’s congratulations to be very fitting, saying that the present Parliament is nothing but a “theater of the absurd”. Declarations on the significance of the historic union of 1918 were voiced from the Parliament’s rostrum by MP Veaceslav Untila of AMN and independent MP Zoia Jalba. “The Union Act adopted by our forefathers could be a worthy step to be emulated by us in the European integration process. Accomplishing this goal can be much easier with the confirmed support of Romania, which we are looking to rejoin in the European community, in the common historical, economic and cultural European space”, declared Veaceslav Untila. Communist Grigore Petrenco retorted with a speech in Russian. Describing the statements of the Opposition MPs as “attempts to misrepresent” the historical reality, Petrenco stated that the events that happened 90 years ago represented “one of the blackest pages of our country’s history – the start of the colonization period by one of the cruelest colonial regimes at the time… “Both during the interwar period and today the unionism and the Romanianization have been generously rewarded from the government resources of the neighbor country” stated Petrenco. “The union of 1918 was by no means lawful, with all the abuses against the population, the armed intrusion and aggression, and in the absence of a plebiscite” Grigore Petrenco added. As the Communist MP spoke, he was booed and hissed by the Opposition, but applauded at the end by his party fellows.