Parliament held a solemn meeting to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the state flag of Moldova. The sitting involved the country’s administration, members of the first Parliament and Moldova’s first President Mircea Snegur, IPN reports.
Speaker Andrian Candu said we will always be grateful to those who had the courage to lay the foundations of the country and to struggle for its symbols over two decades ago. “We managed to assert ourselves as a democratic country on the European continent and are now obliged to build a modern and European country,” he said, noting that several decades ago the people could not image that they will travel visa-free to the EU, with the Moldovan passport only.
First President Mircea Snegur said one of the goals of the national renaissance movement was to restore the authentic symbols. This wasn’t a whim of the nationalists, as the opponents asserted, but the people’s wish to regain their symbols and traditions. “The tricolor was hoisted by late MP Gheorghe Ghimpu, who asked me to allow him to do this because he was affected by the struggle for this symbol in the Soviet period. The state coat of arms and flag were instituted in a not at all favorable period as the country was then part of the USSR yet,” he stated.
Member of Moldova’s first Parliament Mihai Cotorobai said some think the tricolor was adopted as the national symbol by simply raising hands, but for the then MPs that was a sacred vote that was the result of a long struggle. In the Soviet period, for the attempts to raise the tricolor on state institutions, a number of Moldovan citizens were shot and jailed. ”‘I call on the people and the political class to show unity and consolidation. United under the tricolor, we can take the country towards a prosperous future,” he stated.
President Nicolae Timofti said the solemn atmosphere in which the state flag is honored brings back memories of that already historical period when the blue, yellow and red tricolor was raised above us. “At first we demonstrated on the street and then the tricolor was adopted as an official symbol in Parliament. It was a sign of memory restoration,” he said, urging those attending to commemorate those who died for the tricolor to be kept and transmitted to the successors.
The tricolor became the state flag of Moldova in 1990. In 2010 it was decided that the State Flag Day will be marked on April 27 as Gheorghe Ghimpu raised the tricolor on the cupola of the Parliament Building for the first time on April 27, 1990. The state flag and the coat of arms were designed by plastic artist Gheorghe Vrabie.