Prime Minister Vlad Filat in Brussels for talks with European officials

Prime Minister Vlad Filat and Foreign Affairs Minister Iurie Leanca are in Brussels today for talks with European Union officials.

Mr. Filat said he would speak in his native Romanian, in large part because many of the European Parliament M.P.s with whom he talked are from Romania. Mr. Filat also noted that he hopes Romanian will replace Moldovan as the official language in the country.

The name of the language spoken in Moldova has been a controversial topic since the country's independence. The Constitution says that the official language is "Moldovan with Latin script," but most have acknowledged that Romanian and Moldovan are indistinguishable from one another. Communist M.P. Grigore Petrenco admitted this recently, but said that Moldovans have the right to call their language whatever they want. The Party of Communists is normally very supportive of keeping the name "Moldovan," while most of the Alliance for European Integration M.P.s call it "Romanian."

The premier started his conversation with European Parliament M.P.s by saying that Moldova had been run by "Soviet militia general" Vladimir Voronin for eight years, during which time about one million Moldovans left the country. He then went on to answer questions about the freedom of the press, the resolution of the Transnistrian crisis, the Eastern Partnership, and other topics. Most of the European M.P.s who spoke said the European Union should do more to help Moldova.

The ruling Alliance for European Integration is expected to have better ties with the European Union than the Party of Communists did. The coalition's main priority is European integration, and most of its M.P.s and cabinet members are well-known for being pro-Western.

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