Embassy of Romania in Chisinau warns about a fraudulent campaign on regaining Romanian citizenship

Unknown persons initiated a campaign on collecting applications for regaining Romanian citizenship, spreading rumors that soon the dead-line for submitting this requests will expire. The diplomatic mission of Romania to Chisinau denies any involvement in this campaign, Lucian Stanica, the deputy consul of Romania in Chisinau declared at the radio station “Vocea Basarabiei”. According to VB, cited by Info-Prim Neo, the campaign on collecting the aforementioned requests is organized in several localities of the country. Radio’s sources say that in Nisporeni and Calarasi the activity is supervised by law-enforcement bodies, and citizens are forced to pay fees for delivering the letters through the state enterprise “Posta Moldovei”, as well as for the printed forms. The same sources say that the printed forms are distributed in Nisporeni by the representative of a political party for MDL 1 each. Stanica declared live that the Romanian embassy and especially the Consulate of Romania in Chisinau which deals with the files of the solicitants who want Romanian citizenship did not started any campaign in this respect. The diplomat confirmed the fact that the numbers of files indeed increased lately. During the last week about 30 thousand requests were submitted to the Consulate. Stanica declared that he does not understand the urgency of the campaign because there are no plans to stop in the near future the process of regaining Romanian citizenship, which started in 2003. Solicited by Info-Prim Neo, Taisia Rudianu, deputy director of Posta Moldovei declared that the enterprise is not involved in this campaign, because “these kinds of activities are not included in the list of the responsibilities we have as a state enterprise”, Rudianu says. At the same the cited source also recognized that the number of registered letters significantly increased lately. At the end of August, the president of Romania, Traian Basescu declared that until the end of 2006 the Romanian Parliament will pass a new law on citizenship and one referring to the Romanians living abroad.