The Moldovan Parliament Will No Longer Translate Bills into Russian

The new rules of procedure for the legislature, which are currently under consideration, stipulate that Romanian shall remain the sole official language of parliament. Translation into other languages will only be possible once the laws have been adopted. The authors of the bill believe this measure will reduce the workload on parliamentary translators and speed up the publication of adopted documents, reports tvrmoldova.md. “The current law on the publication of official documents requires both Romanian and Russian versions to be provided. Without a Russian translation, a law simply cannot be published. This is precisely why urgent bills are often delayed – there is no Russian version. All state institutions suffer from a shortage of translators. And then there are changes, amendments… The volume of work is enormous. The official language of Moldova is Romanian, and discussions in parliament will also be conducted solely in that language,” said the bill’s author, PAS MP Igor Talmazan. The idea is also supported by some opposition MPs. “The switch to Romanian in official parliamentary documents is welcome. The bill also states that, where necessary, they will be translated into other languages. One of our priorities is the reunification of the country. And by providing translations into other languages, we are ensuring the right to information for national minorities as well. The documents will be translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Gagauz,” said Alexander Berlinski, an MP from “Our Party”. Ion Hadarca, an MP from the first parliament, believes that this is “an absolutely necessary step forward, although the initiative should have come from the Central Election Commission during the elections”. “The opposition, of course, may challenge this – saying that the law stated otherwise or did not provide for such a measure. But overall, I believe this is an absolutely necessary step forward. At the very least, it is strange to see people in the Moldovan Parliament speaking a language other than that enshrined in the Constitution and the law,” he said. It should be recalled that PAS MPs have tabled a bill on new Rules of Procedure for Parliament. The document also stipulates that MPs leaving a parliamentary group will become independents and will no longer be able to join other groups or form new ones.