The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues actions aiming at opening two new consulates on the territory of Moldova, despite the statement made last week by the Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Stratan, according to which the Government in Chisinau withdraws its agreement regarding this initiative. According to the Romanian media, Director of the Romanian MFA’s Office for Relations with Moldova Dan Dumitru said at the joint meeting of foreign policy committees of the Chamber of Deputies and Romanian Senate that the statement of Minister Stratan of March 7 about Chisinau’s refusal to allow the opening of the two consulates has puzzled Romanian authorities. However, it was only a statement which was not backed by any official document. The representative of the Romanian MFA said that the precontracts for the purchase of the two consulate buildings were prolonged till March 26. According to the same sources, Chairman of the Senate Committee for Foreign Policy Mircea Geoana proposed a lottery system for Moldovans. Geoana considers it is impossible to offer one million Romanian citizenships for Moldovans in short-time. He specified that the agreement Romania-EU is not including an extra number of 1 million citizens to the existing 22 million. In light of this fact he supports the idea of creating “a visa lottery system” to grant Romanian citizenship to Moldovans, which, according to him, “would select the type of professional qualification depending on the demands of the Romanian market”. For his part, Minister of Administration and Interiors Vasile Blaga pleads for changing the Law on citizenship by eliminating the stipulation according to which living on the territory of Romania for four years is compulsory for the right to obtain citizenship. He confirmed that about 500 thousand requests in this respect came from Moldova, but the requests represent families, thus the real figure might reach 900,000. Blaga said he proposed the Schengen member-countries to join Romania in the Joint Visa Issuance Centre in Chisinau. “There is no competition between Romania and Hungary, as the two centres will be complementary”, the minister emphasised.