NGOs demand Romanian nationality granting procedure be debureaucratized

The Organization of Bessarabian Students, the National Foundation for the Romanians from Everywhere and the Brothers Golescu Institute addressed a letter to the Romanian authorities, asking that the procedure for granting Romanian nationality to Moldovan citizens be debureaucratized. The civil associations have informed the Romanian Minister of Justice Catalin Marin Predoiu that the Citizenship Division refuses to ensure a working program with the public, in accordance with the law. The Division reduced the program from two days to one day a week. They demand that all the decisions taken by the Division be placed in a visible place and contain the number of the decision, the date, the signature and the legal reason. The associations also lodged an application with the prefect of Bucharest municipality Mihai Cristian Atanasoaei, asking that the procedure for obtaining simple individual passports from the public community passport service be simplified for the Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens who apply to regain the Romanian nationality and need simple individual passport by maintaining the residence abroad. Currently, the Moldovan and Ukrainian nationals who regained the Romanian citizenship and were born before October 1979 do not receive personal numerical code when the birth certificate is registered at the relevant authority, the organizations say. Thus, the Romanian nationals have to go to Bucharest again to have their pictures taken and to pay the emergency tax for obtaining the passport in two hours.