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Strasbourg, 18 July 2003
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Restricted
CDL (2003) 49
Engl. only
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Opinion no. 254 / 2003
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EUROPEAN COMMISSION
FOR DEMOCRACY THROUGH LAW
(VENICE COMMISSION)
Draft Concept
ON THE STATE
NATIONAL POLICY
OF THE
REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA
Concept of the state national
policy of the Republic of Moldova, further called as Concept, represents
a totality of the priority principles, goals and objectives of unity and
integration of the multinational people of the Republic of Moldova through
harmonization of the national interests with interests of all ethnic and
linguistic communities in the country.
The Concept is based upon
provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, national legislation
in force, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Pact on Civil
and Political Rights, International Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, European Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms,
other international acts on human rights, ethnic and linguistic communities which
the Republic of Moldova adhered to.
The elaboration and adoption of
this Concept are determined by a necessity to establish a direction of the
state national policy, which would correspond to the national interests, would
ensure strengthening of the independence of the Moldovan state and establishing
of the multinational civil society.
The Concept will serve as guidelines for public authorities of all
levels to promote the economic, social and cultural policy, aiming their
activity to strengthen the statality, unite the multinational people of Moldova
and establish civil society.
I.
General Provisions
The Republic of Moldova is a
political and legal continuity of the uninterrupted multiage process of the
Moldovan people statality. The Moldovans as a titular nation along with the
representatives of other nations – Ukrainians, Russians, Gagauzians,
Bulgarians, Jews, Romanians, Belarussians, Gypsies (Romany), Polishes etc, –
are the people of Moldova and have a common motherland – Republic of Moldova.
As a condition of political
sovereignty and civil peace served tolerance and respect for languages,
religions, ethnic, religious and cultural peculiarities of the representatives
of con-living peoples, always showed by the multinational population of Moldova.
The State commits itself to take
care of preservation, development and free expression of the ethnic,
linguistic, cultural and religious identity of all nationalities living in the
country.
The Moldovan language, having an official language status, is used in
all fields of political, economic, social and cultural life and by virtue of
this fact, fulfils its function of language for interethnic communication. The
study of the Moldovan language is one of the state priorities.
The Russian language, similar to
the Moldovan language, has a status of interethnic communication and is used in
all spheres of state and society activity. The Moldovan-Russian and
Russian-Moldovan bilingualism that had been historically established in Moldova
should be developed and improved in the present conditions.
The Gagauz, Moldovan and Russian
languages have a status of official languages on the territory of Gagauzia. In
Transdniestria Moldovan, Ukrainian and Russian function as official languages.
Besides the Moldovan national
culture, in Moldova there are developed the culture of Gagauz people, cultures
of other nationalities that make their considerable contribution to creation
and development of the common spiritual space in Moldova. Mutually interacting
and enriching, various cultures create common cultural inheritance and property
of the country. Ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity is the wealth of
Moldova.
The further promotion of the
state national policy, aimed to ensure civic conciliation, development of
ethnic and linguistic communities, correct interethnic relationship, overcoming
of consequences of the civil conflict in the late ’80s – early ’90s of the last
century, implies the solution of the following key challenges:
- to eradicate multiple
attempts of demoldovenization, negation of existence of the Moldovan nation and
Moldovan statality, discrediting of the Moldovan history, ignoring of the
ethnonym “Moldovans” and “Moldovan language”;
- to
create immediately necessary conditions to remove insufficient knowledge of the
Moldovan language by a part of the population of the republic;
- to not admit the
narrowing of the usage sphere of the Russian language in spite of provisions of
the legislation in force.
II.
Principles of the state national policy
The state national policy is based upon the following basic principles:
-
priority of the state interests and values;
-
unity of multinational people of the Republic of Moldova;
-
equality in rights and freedoms of persons despite the ethnic
origin, language and religion;
-
respect, recognizing and guaranteeing rights for all citizens
of the republic on preservation, development and expression of their ethnic,
cultural, linguistic and religious identity;
-
non-admittance of the discrimination on ethnic origin,
language, religion, non-admittance of restraint of the right on use of the
mother tongue, choice of language for education and study;
-
non-admittance of any assimilation and denationalization activities;
-
keeping and continuous developing of the Moldovan language
identity and Moldovan culture, taking into consideration their East Roman
origin, the respect of history, culture, linguistic peculiarities, ethnic
physiology of the Moldavians from Transdniestria;
-
interethnic enhancing and integration on the basis of the
Moldovan-Russian and Russian-Moldovan bilingual situation that had been
established historically, as well as preservation of the linguistic variety.
III.
STATE NATIONAL POLICY GOALS
The State National Policy has the following main goals:
-
to enhance multinational civil society as a condition for
consolidation of political, legal, historical and cultural basis of the
Moldovan state;
-
to strengthen the political, legal, historical and cultural basis
of the Republic of Moldova territorial integrity;
-
to intensify ethnic consolidation process of the Moldovans and
interethnic integration by enhancing trust of citizens of different
nationalities in their common homeland – Republic of Moldova;
-
to keep historical memory of the Moldovan people, to further
affirm and develop its national and cultural identity;
-
to preserve and develop culture and languages of all national
communities from Moldova.
IV. STATE NATIONAL POLICY OBJECTIVES
Starting from the suggested goals, the promotion of state national
policy supposes the implementation of the following main objectives:
1.
In political, state
and legal area:
-
to affirm the system of state values on the basis of civic
patriotism and spirit, to comprehend by citizens of all nationalities their
belonging to the unique nation of the Republic of Moldova;
-
to develop legislation that would regulate state national
policy in order to insure entire realization of citizens’ constitutional rights
and freedoms, to improve the legal framework of staff and regional policy,
which will take into consideration the interests of ethnic cohabiting
communities;
-
to apply continuously the international standards to national
and linguistic problems solving;
-
to ensure the effective legal protection of citizens, despite
their ethnic belonging, inevitability of their liability for instigation to
national discord, propagandising of the ideas of national superiority,
instigation to the violent acts and their committing, citizens’ rights offencing
on ethnic and linguistic grounds;
-
to respect professionalism, competence and devoting criteria
for the homeland while promoting state policy in the staff area;
-
to unify public authorities of all levels, social and
political organizations, mass-media for civic conciliation and establishment of
civic society;
-
the establishment of a central, regional and local public
authorities actions coordination system in order to promote national state
policy.
2.
In social and
economic area:
-
to unify the whole society in order to develop state economic
potential;
-
to provide all citizens with equal conditions for social
promoting, despite their ethnic belonging;
-
to re-establish the unique social and economic space on the
entire territory of the Republic of Moldova;
-
to create equal conditions for social and economic development
of all Republic of Moldova regions.
3.
In humanitarian
area:
-
to form a unique system of values on the basis of the respect
for the state, human rights and freedoms;
-
to cultivate patriotism in citizens of the Republic of
Moldova;
-
to educate and train the growing generation in the spirit of
respect for Moldovan language, culture and history as national spiritual values
of their common country;
-
to educate and train young generation in the spirit of respect
for the history, culture and languages of ethnic cohabiting communities, for
common spiritual values;
-
to provide effective development of Moldovan national culture,
Moldovan language and history study as a basis for Moldovan national identity
and for civic self-consciousness of all representatives of ethnic communities
from Moldova;
-
to ensure conditions for the keeping and continuous
development of the Russian language official functions;
-
to uphold from the state the development of Ukrainian, Gagauz,
Bulgarian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Romany and other languages of national minorities
that are living on the territory of the republic.
4. In the foreign policy sphere:
- to affirm
image of the Republic of Moldova as an European state, as a member of the
international community which is aimed to the general known standards in the
sphere of protection of human rights and freedoms of the ethnic and linguistic
communities;
- to develop relations with
the states which represent the ethno-historical homeland of the national
minorities from the Republic of Moldova;
- to extend agreements with
Moldavian Diaspora;
- to strengthen the
cooperation with foreign states, international organizations regarding the
security of the national and cultural rights and freedoms of a person;
V. STATE NATIONAL POLICY SECURITY
The state national
policy is promoted by public authorities of all levels through developing of
specific activities aimed to the achieve goals and objectives specified in the
Concept.
In order to implement the Concept
provisions, the Government will elaborate in this regard a complex program of
measures, which will connect the national policy actions with the priorities of
economic and political reforms, which are carried out in the country. The
complex program should be approved by the Parliament.
The successful realization of the Concept implies an efficient dialogue
between public authorities and civil society, including the political parties,
non-governmental organizations, the mass media etc.
The Government of the Republic of
Moldova will coordinate the ministry and department activities regarding the
implementation of the state national policy Concept.
