Moldovan parliament votes through law to replace Moldovan language with Romanian amid growing tensions with Russia

The Moldovan parliament has voted through a law to replace the Moldovan language with the Romanian language in official legislation in what has been regarded as a symbolic stand against Russia as tensions grow in the region.

The Moldovan parliament voted through a draft law to change the Moldovan language to Romanian language on all legislative documents.

This comes two days after budget airline Wizz Air announced it is to suspend all flights to Moldovan capital Chisinau from mid March amid safety fears over an “elevated” risk in Moldova’s air space. A stray missile last month flew into Moldova, which borders Ukraine as well as Romania.

The law, which will see all official legislation written in Romanian, rather than Moldovan, as well as replacing the phrases "official language", "state language" and "mother tongue" with “Romanian”, is set to be implemented in 30 days. The Moldovan language is very similar to Romanian, however, has historically been written using Cyrillic script, like Russian, rather than Latin notation, like Romanian.

The draft law, voted in by 52 elected parliamentarians and put forward by the ruling liberal Party of Action and Solidarity, stated “that the state language of the Republic of Moldova is the Romanian language”.

The pro-Russian BCS party (Bloc of Communists and Socialists) staged a protest at the decision.

It has been feared Moldova, a former Soviet territory that had in recent years been aligned with the West and became a candidate for European Union accession last year, could be drawn into the Russia-Ukraina conflict.

The Kremlin said on Monday it was concerned over the situation in the pro-Soviet Moldovan breakaway republic of Transnistria, saying Ukraine and the West could be trying to create tensions. However, there have been claims Russia could stage a “false flag” attack, which could look like Ukraine had invaded the territory. It has also been claimed Russia is plotting a coup to overthrow pro-European Moldovan president Maia Sandu.

In the same parliamentary session, Moldovan politicians approved a declaration condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine. The declaration deemed Russia's actions in Ukraine as war crimes and a serious violation of international law. It also called on the Russian Federation to immediately cease military activities in Ukraine and unconditionally withdraw all military forces and equipment from the entirety of Ukraine.