CHISINAU (Sputnik) - Most of Moldovan citizens are against the unification of Moldova and Romania and oppose the initiative to change the name of the country’s language to “Romanian” in the constitution, a fresh poll, carried out by the Imas pollster at the request of the Democratic Party of Moldova, showed.

If a referendum on Moldova joining Romania took place on the coming Sunday, 62 percent of the respondents would vote against the move, while 25 percent would back the initiative, the poll results say. Meanwhile, 8 percent of those polled failed to answer, while 3 percent said that they would have refrained from participating in the vote.

The study also revealed that 63 percent of respondents spoke against changing the country’s language name to "Romanian" in the constitution, while 34 percent backed the idea. Another 3 percent of respondents could not choose or did not answer the question.

The survey was carried out on February 16 – March 6 among 1,099 people.

The issue of the unification of Moldova and Romania is closely tied to the region’s history. March 2018 marks a centenary since the historic decision of the parliament of Bessarabia region of the Russian Empire, which is mostly a part of modern Moldova, to unite with Romania. Moldova was a part of Romania until 1940, when the Romanian authorities agreed to cede Bessarabia to the Soviet Union. The new territories formed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, which existed until 1991 when it declared independence along with other Soviet republics.

There is also a controversy about the linguistic identity of Moldova. In Moldova’s constitution, the official language is indicated as Moldovan. However, the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova states that the country’s official language is Romanian.

In October, the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova alliance proposed a motion to change the country’s language name to Romanian in the constitution. It was backed by the Moldova’s government and Moldovan Constitutional Court, but still approval of the Moldovan parliament, since only 35 parliament members out of 101 backed the initiative. Moldovan President Igor Dodon has spoken against the move, and suggested that it would not receive enough votes to be approved by the parliament.

Meanwhile, the poll also showed that almost 60 percent of Moldovan citizens would have voted against the republic's accession to NATO if a nationwide referendum on the issue was held.

According to the survey, only 17 percent of respondents would have voted for joining NATO, while 61 percent of respondents opposed the idea.

Meanwhile, 4 percent of respondents replied that they would have refused to participate in the referendum, while 5 percent failed to answer the question.

The survey was carried out on February 16 – March 6 among 1,099 people.

Moldova is a constitutionally neutral country, which means it does not participate in military alliances. However, Moldova has cooperated with NATO since joining the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1992 and the Partnership for Peace in 1994, and has also worked with the alliance under the Individual Partnership Action Plan, adopted in 2006.