Favorable report for amending Romanian nationality law

The Commission for Foreign Affairs of the Romanian Senate Wednesday unanimously approved a favorable report with amendments to the Romanian nationality law, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting Agerpres. ”The vote was unanimous though in case of certain amendments there was a majority, not unanimity. We will support the adoption of the report and of the bill in the Senate,” said the Social-Democratic Senator Titus Corlatean, the commission’s chairman. ”We adopted an amendment to double the number of persons working at the Citizenship Division that will process the applications. Before amended under the Emergency Ordinance, the law stipulated a number of six employees. The Ordinance raised it to eight, but we doubled it to 12 persons,” said the chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs. At the same time, Titus Corlatean said that under an amendment approved by the members of the commission, those that want to regain the Romanian nationality will not have to file applications only to the Citizenship Division of the Ministry of Justice and Citizenship Freedoms as the consulates and prefects’ offices will also accept applications. The chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs added that the citizenship will not be granted en masse. “This involves a series of documents and procedures. The Romanian state assumes certain responsibilities,” Titus Corlatean explained. “Practically, there was resumed the procedure for filing applications that was very laborious earlier. Now, the people that have expected for many years resume the application lodging process. We should not forget that there is a large number of applications collected the previous years. Under the bill, the Romanian state must give an answer within five months of the moment the application begins to be processed. We kept this term and hope to avoid situations when the Ministry of Justice, the Government or the Romanian state could be sued by applicants for not receiving an answer in a reasonable period of time,” Corlatean said. According to the Social-Democratic Senator, the Senate’s legal commission and the human rights commission must also prepare reports by June 2. The labor commission and the commission for public administration approved of the bill. The Senate is the first Chamber of the Romanian Parliament dealing with this law.