Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi says the link between the wave of illegal immigrants and the recovery of Romanian citizenship by people from the Republic of Moldova is artificial, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting Agerpres. Baconschi made this statement in response to the recent articles that appeared in the European press which criticized Romania for offering citizenship to large numbers of Moldovans and thus letting them into the EU “through the backdoor”. “I would like to believe that the simultaneous appearance of these articles in the foreign press is not the sign of a media campaign on this subject. We haven't broken any European rule, and by no means the Acquis, and we manifested ourselves in this matter as a sovereign state. I don's see how the creation of the National Citizenship Agency, with its local subsidiaries, and easier citizenship recovery procedures, affect in any way the European Union, or the Commission, or the members states”, said Baconschi. Minister Baconschi also recalled that Romania made good progress as concerns its commitments regarding border security and that the first five Schengen assessment missions produced positive results.