The European Commission has nothing to say against granting the Romanian citizenship to the inhabitants of the Republic of Moldova, as the citizenship issue is an aspect reserved to the national competences of each member state, Emma Udwin, the spokesperson of External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner told Rompres, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. Referring to Romania’s recent proposal to participate in the pilot project intended to create a common visa application centre in Chisinau, Emma Udwin specified that Brussels expects a series of additional data from Bucharest. This clarification was made after Russian Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov had criticised in a recently published interview the EU and NATO for not taking a stand with regard to granting Romanian citizenship to applicants from Moldova. According to President Traian Basescu, there are about 800,000 requests to obtain or regain Romanian citizenship submitted by Moldovan citizens to the authorities in Bucharest.