According to the constitution of Moldova, the Russian language was widely considered to be the language of intercultural communication. It does not have an official status in Moldova. We have only one official language, which is Romanian. The status of the Russian language as a means of intercultural communication dates back to the time when we were part of the Soviet Union. Today, this is already an outdated provision. We don't need it. The younger generation doesn't speak Russian. With the exception of the media, which was widely owned by Russian channels, they do not speak or learn Russian at school, so it's usage in Moldova has diminished. Only the elderly population speaks mainly Russian. We don't believe that the Russian language has to have a special status, especially if you take into consideration the fact that the composition of the population of Moldova shows that the first and largest group is, of course, Moldovans, and the second largest group is Ukrainians. Why, then, Ukrainian? Ukrainians will not claim to have a special status for their language.
This is why we decided it is no longer right to have a specific status given to the Russian language. Actually, the Constitutional Court recently confirmed that it is already time for us to get rid of this provision in the constitution. It's actually not in the constitution, but in the law on the functioning of languages in Moldova.