Moldovan students ask for public support to modify Law on Romanian citizenship

Moldovan students have launched a campaign to support re-gaining the Romanian citizenship for people from Moldova and Bukovina, named “Pro Romanian Citizenship,” Info-Prim Neo has learnt from the web site of the Moldovan students in Romania: www.basarabeni.ro. The drive is meant to inform the Romanian and European public opinion about the issue of re-gaining the Romanian citizenship. The project is to unfold in several university centers from Romania. The students ask for this kind of public support to enforce the ordinance of the Romanian Government to modify the Law on Romanian Citizenship. The students also argue that the Romanians from the old Romanian province of Basarabia (present Moldova) pass through a major identity crisis. Everywhere in the former Soviet space the Romanian population still suffers. “The law is of key importance for all the Romanians living outside Romania, who are deprived of their natural right – the citizenship – because of the consequences of the Ribbentrop – Molotov pact,” the Basarabian students maintain. The campaign has no time limit and also pursues to inform on the way of gaining the Romanian citizenship, of integrating the Basarabian students from Romania into the Romanian society and of maintaining the relations with the Romanians from Moldova. The youths will install info tents in Timisoara. From 4 to 7 p.m., the students from those tents will play patriotic Romanian songs, will distribute flyers, CDs and T-shirts with the signs of the drive. The slogans are: “Basarabia, the Romanian citizenship is your right!” and “Basarabia, Romanian Land.” The Romanian Government simplified the procedures of granting Romanian citizenship to the former Romanian citizens and their children by modifying the Law on citizenship of 1991, as had been requested by Romanian president Traian Basescu.