Romania’s President Traian Basescu said Wednesday, during an official visit to Chisinau, the country’s Government will issue an emergency ordinance to set up a special agency granting Romanian citizenship to those who lost it.
"The Government will issue a normative act Friday to set up aspecial agency granting Romanian citizenship to those who lost it,"Basescu said a after a meeting with Moldovan interim PresidentMihai Ghimpu.
Basescu said the agency will have its headquarters in Bucharestwith five branches in Iasi, Galati, Suceava, Cluj andTimisoara.
Talking about delays in granting Romanian citizenship, Basescusaid the law amended last year stipulates citizenship should begranted within five months, adding never were there registereddelays in granting citizenship if applications were in order andcomplete.
The Romanian president said the Foreign Ministry pledged to getto the bottom of the unsolved files submitted before the law wasamended.
The Moldovan Liberal Party urged Moldovan citizens who want toregain their Romanian citizenship to address directly to theRomanian presidency and criticized the "hypocrisy of the Romaniancivil servants".
Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca said on Radio FranceInternationale Romania that the Republic of Moldova's main requestconcerns granting Romanian citizenship to Moldovan citizens, addingthe law must be amended, as Romania offers citizenship only topeople who live on its territory.
Chirtoaca said the procedures to obtain Romanian citizenship arestill very exhausting, adding the mechanism must be drasticallysimplified.
Talks on simplifying the law granting Romanian citizenship toMoldovans began in 2006. Procedures were simplified in April 2009,following events taking place after Moldovan parliament elections.The new law on granting citizenship was promulgated by Basescu onNovember 11, 2009,