The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration requests the embassies working in Moldova and their personnel to show respect for the laws, regulations and institutions of the state to which they were accredited and to refrain from making comments that can be classed as interference in the internal affairs of the state.

The request was made following statements about the Constitutional Court’s judgment concerning the law on the functioning of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. The institution does not specify what statements it refers to and who made these, IPN reports.

On January 21, the Constitutional Court declared the law on the functioning of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova unconstitutional. The law was adopted by the votes of the MPs of the Party of Socialists and of the For Moldova Platform, which includes the MPs of the Shor Party, on December 16, 2020. The CC judgment says the Russian language is mentioned in the Constitution as an example and this does not offer this language in the Republic of Moldova a status different from that of other languages spoken in Moldova, such as Ukrainian, Gagauz, Bulgarian, Romany etc.

In a comment on January 22, the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Chisinau said the judgment passed by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova on January 21, by which the Russian language is deprived of the status of language of communication between ethnic groups, is a worrisome factor in the keeping of interethnic peace in the Moldovan state, which is a multinational one. The same day, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Maria Zakharova, said the Constitutional Court’s decision is “profoundly regrettable”.