Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu have agreed to open two Romanian consulates in the cities of Balti and Cahul without further delay, so as to accelerate the process of issuing visas, the two presidents stated on Tuesday, January 16, following a meeting as part of a flight visit paid by Basescu to Chisinau. Voronin told reporters that the recently created situation concerning the large number of visa applications for Romania is not normal and needs to unblocked. “Therefore, we decided to open 2 consular offices in Cahul and Balti without delay”. Voronin also said that during the meeting the presidents discussed other issues, such as the requests of Moldovan citizens for regaining the Romanian citizenship “in order to work and freely travel throughout Europe”. Basescu thanked in turn President Voronin for accepting the opening of the two consulates in order to accelerate the process of issuing visas and solve the consular problems Moldovan citizens confront with. Basescu trusts that Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will quickly take action to designate the necessary personnel in Cahul and Balti within 7-10 days will. Regarding requests of citizenship, Basescu said that 530,000 applications for receiving citizenship have been submitted so far. Many applications include several persons or even entire families. As the Romanian authorities have troubles processing such a number of applications, prior attention will be afforded to students, graduates from Romanian higher education.