A recent study (Iordachi 2012) finds that Romanian authorities have dealt with 226,509 requests of reacquisition of Romanian citizenship including applications from Moldavians over a period of 20 years (from 1991 to 15 August 2011). This total number includes positive decisions as well as refusals which means that the number of granted citizenships is lower. The exact number of Moldavians who gained Romanian citizenship through the reacquisition procedure remains unknown.

The OSI’s study shows that the alarming news made in the press about large numbers of Moldavians becoming Romanian citizens and, therefore, European Union citizens with full free movement rights were unfounded as numbers have remained relatively low, at least when compared with excessive speculations.

Many important European newspapers raised concerns on Romania’s policy on reacquisition after the state eased conditions for ethnic Romanians from neighboring Moldova and Ukraine in 2009. In Germany, Der Spiegel wrote that the Romanian passports would earn Moldavians “an entry to the EU through the back door”. The BBC rang the “alarm at EU passports” for Moldavians while The Telegraph warned its readers that with the newly acquired citizenship Moldavians could claim benefits in the UK Several European news agencies featured related stories (see EU Observer, EurActiv, PressEurop, EUbusiness).

Concerns about Romanian policy for Moldavians resurfaced in 2010 in the discussions on the admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area. France blocked the bids of the two countries on the grounds that “it is well understood that Romania and Bulgaria do not have a closed door” (see report on EurActiv).

 

Some politicians in Moldova and Ukraine were also unhappy about Romanian’s policy of granting citizenship to some of their citizens (see earlier EUDO CITIZENSHIP reports on protests in Ukraine and Moldova. While the literature on Romanian citizenship argues in favour of understanding Romanian citizenship policy as historical restoration after the fall of communism (see Iordachi 2009), Romanian political analysts have also pointed out that the country’s new policy serves its geostrategic interests in the area after it became a member of the EU (Ghinea, Dinu and Ivan 2010). In fact, the extension of reacquisition rights for Moldavians came only days away after political protests in April 2009 (see report on The Guardian), an event which marked a turning point in Romanian-Moldavian relations.

In press reports, the estimated number of Moldavians that would receive Romanian citizenship ranged from 650, 000 in Der Spiegel to 1 million in the Financial Times. Romanian President Basescu himself seems to have contributed to inflating the numbers and appeal of Romanian citizenship the when he declared in a TV show in April 2009 that there were between 800,000 and one million applications for citizenship in the Romanian embassy in Chisinau (Ghinea, Dinu, Ivan 2010: 17).

The findings of the OSI study show that these estimates were far larger than the actual numbers. The table below lists the applications for reacquisition received and processed each year.

 

TABLE 1 Reacquisition of Romanian citizenship: annual applications filled and processed
year	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Applications filled	3126	16 975	5379	2895	3438	2077	3883	21759	94391	51449
Applications processed	0	6	263	1603	489	664	4512	21999	41843	47128
*until 15 August Source: Iordachi et al. (2011) p. 154 based on data from National Authority for Citizenship

 

 

Reacquisition under the Romanian Nationality Act

Reacquiring of Romanian citizenship is established in the Nationality Act no 21 from 1991 which has been amended on various occasions. Most notably, the Government Emergency Ordinance no 36 from 2009 has broadened the categories of persons eligible for reacquisition, waived several requirements and shortened the time period. However, the Nationality Act does not set special conditions for Moldavians and Ukrainians nor does it mention the two countries. Instead, the law establishes a special category of applicants who are 1) former Romanian citizens who obtained Romanian citizenship at birth and 2) who lost Romanian citizenship for reasons which are not imputable to them or without their will.

These special categories of former citizens have the right to naturalise by fulfilling a limited number of requirements. For instance, they do not need to have their residence on Romanian territory; they do not need to take a test of knowledge of Romanian language and culture or to provide proof of sufficient economic means, as the Nationality Act requires for all other applicants. In addition, descendants of these former Romanian citizens up to the third generation also qualify for the simplified procedure. The text of the law does not mention Moldova and Ukraine but these are the two countries where most the people who meet the two criteria listed above live. The large majority of them live in Bessarabia, a region in Moldova. Bessarabia and some other regions from the two countries were Romanian state territory before they became part of the USSR following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939.

The special privileges that Romanian authorities offer to ethnic Romanians in the former territories of Greater Romania contrast with less concerns for Romanian minorities in other neighboring countries; a fact that has passed surprisingly unnoticed in the literature. Nevertheless, the reunification of Greater Romania is one of the main projects of the extreme right in Romania and a political party with two elected representatives in the European Parliament is called Greater Romania.

Former citizens who were born when these territories were part of Romania would now be at least 72 years old. This means that rather than restoring citizenship to former citizens, the current reacquisition procedure is granting citizenship to their descendants: their children and grandchildren. Works cited:
Iordachi C. ed. (2012), Redobândirea cetăţeniei române: Perspective istorice, comparative şi aplicate/ Reacquiring the Romanian Citizenship: Historical, Comparative and Applied Perspectives, bilingual edition Romanian-English, 498 p., Bucharest, Curtea Veche (more here)

Iordachi, C. (2009): “Romania. Country report” EUDO Citizenship Observatory, Robert Shuman for Advanced Studies, Florence (available here)

Ghinea C., D. Dinu, P. Ivan (2010): “Cum am folosit fereastra de oportunitate: bilantul unui am de relansare a relatiilor Romania-Republica Moldova” CRPE Policy Memo no 19, Bucharest Link to the OSI study (in Romanian)

 

Read further news reports in the EU observer and on the Moldavian website hotnews (in Romanian, translation in English by Andrei Stavila here). Some of the facts included in the latter report do not match our data.