Issuing Italian visas to become simpler and quicker: Italian FM

Issuing visas for Italy will become simpler and quicker, stated Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Chisinau on Monday. The official came to Moldova to inaugurate the diplomatic chancellery of the Italian Embassy, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to him, the visa applicants should be knowing they have already a job in Italy when lodging the documents. He says the Moldovan citizens in Italy won't be chased home, if their stay is legal. “Anyone abiding by law is welcome to work in Italy,” Franco Frattini says. Encouragement will be provided to the Moldovans working as house maids and in public works, Frattini added. He says the employees of the diplomatic mission to Chisinau will be able to process some 50,000 visa applications a year , compared to 20,000 processed this year by the Bucharest-based embassy, as priority will be granted to the ones will to start their business in Italy, to do business or to work in the areas of tourism or culture. He says the people with work contracts to be employed as maids won't be neglected. His Moldovan counterpart Andrei Stratan says he does not know the number of the Moldovans in Italy but hopes, after the embassy is opened, the data will be checked. Stratan calls the inauguration of the diplomatic chancellery as “a very important political moment” and said the economic ties between the two countries would step up. Over 370 companies having Italian equity work in Moldova now, Andrei Startan says, hoping their number will climb. The Italian embassy to Chisinau will start working on January 2, 2009, on Vlaicu Parcalap str., 63. Now the Moldovans go to apply for Italian visas to Bucharest.