The effects of the changes to the Law of Romanian citizenship are felt at the headquarters of the National Authority for Citizenship (ANC) even in the first week after the completion of the presidential elections and are exactly those anticipated by critics.
The Romanian ethnicities are no longer crammed at ANC
In a cry of despair, the Institute of the Golescu Brothers for relations with the Romanians from abroad, an association that fights for the respect of the Romanian ethnic people everywhere, asks the new President of Romania, Nicușor Dan, to take a position to respect the rights of Romanians everywhere. And he reminds him of the new leader from Cotroceni that he was voted massively by the Bessarabians. They now ask the relatives and their descendants to not be put in wheels by the Romanian state to receive the citizenship to which they have the right:
“Although, theoretically, ANC has the administrative ability to process up to 280 files per day on art. 11 of the law (the descendants of the Romanian ethnic groups abandoned by the Romanian state in 1940, respectively after the completion of the Second World War), Monday, 26.05.2025, only 31 persons (proof, below) were scheduled, of which they submitted under 10, the rest being rejected. This trend continued in the following days: Tuesday, 27.05.2025 – approx. 10 persons, Wednesday, 28.05.2025-only 2 deposits from 73 scheduled persons, respectively 4-5 persons submitted on 29.05.2025 out of 182 scheduled persons, due to the illogical restrictions imposed by the Order of the ANC President no. 85/2025 published in MO no. 349 bis from 22.04.2025.
This collapse of the number of requests does not reflect a decrease in the desire of Romanians to obtain citizenship, but the practical impossibility to fulfill the new conditions imposed by the Order of the ANC President no.85/2025. People still want Romanian citizenship, but the state raised them a bureaucratic wall. Romania, which should have been a binder between generations and historical territories, has instead become an administrative fence that holds these Romanians at a distance.
How did you get here? Simple: by inefficiency, lack of transparency and professionalism, misinformation and disinterest. Although the lady former Minister of Justice, Alina Gorghiu, stated when the legislative modification project was debated that “a simple, predictable and stable normative framework will be ensured” the effects are contrary.
Congratulations to Mrs. Gorghiu and to all the functions who have managed to bury the law of Romanian citizenship and the rights of Romanian ethnicity everywhere! The result: below 20 file submission in a week, out of over 1000 places available! We mention that Monday-Joi there is a number of approx. 280 places available, which by December 2024 was extended monthly, as the requests exceeded these places!
Who bears the blame for this situation? If we read the text of the law, we see the competences attributed to the current management of ANC, Silviu Barbu Gabriel, the president of the National Authority for Citizenship – a re -employed retirement magistrate, so a special pension and simultaneous salary – must be nominated as the main responsible for the administrative disaster from ANC. He is the one who issued the ANC Order no. 85/2025 with the list of supporting documents, a set of unclear written requirements, without consulting the civil society, completely ignoring the suggestions of the experts who wrote that the order is not applicable (lawyers, etc.). Moreover, under its leadership, the institution continued to be opaque and without transparency: although on the ANC website there is theoretically an audience program, in practice it is purely formal and the citizens fail to obtain clarifications, the stage requests do not answer in 30 days, the phones are passed, because no one answers the court, because no one answers the court, because no one answers the court, because no one answers the court, because no one answers the court, because no one answers the courts,
For his part, Alina Gorghiu, former Minister of Justice (initiator of the legislative project in 2024), from political calculation, promoted these aberrant changes that discriminate against Romanians outside the borders. The cumulative result of these actions is that the law of citizenship has been transformed into an instrument of humiliation of the diaspora. Romania turns its back to its own children abroad and is playing the sacrifices of the past – an attitude for which, warns the voices of civil society, the state will have to respond to the citizens, and of history – a history of shame and betrayal.
The order does not clearly explain what is meant by “original extract” or “as the case may be” and does not specify which documents are accepted for submission according to the country. Thus, the applicants do not know what documents must exactly submit, and on the ANC website there is no explicit list of documents with each country. By this order, ANC, on behalf of the Romanian state, introduces de facto exceptions from international conventions (bilateral legal assistance treaties, the London Convention) without respecting the legal reserve or denunciation procedure, and it is very interesting to find out the position of the strategic partners when they find out about this behavior of the Romanian state, through its administration. The order requires documents that are not provided in the national laws of other states (eg special certificates for single -parent families), which contravenes the principle of international law according to which the civil status documents are governed by the national law. In addition, this order adds to the law, because the law does not require the applicant to submit civil status documents for all family members (eg all grandparents, both parents, etc.), but only the proof of a single Romanian citizen. Order 85/2025, however, requires the presentation of civil status documents for all grandparents and parents even if they are not relevant to the request for regaining – which is an unforeseen requirement and, therefore, an addition to it.
Under these conditions, the natural question is asked: what is the role of this giant entitled ANC, with over 100 employees with king salaries and territorial offices in Iași, Galați and Suceava, if they have blocked the deposits institutional?
We remind that on 23.02.2024 the Ministry of Justice launched the project to amend the law of Romanian citizenship in public debate. At the meeting held at the ministry’s headquarters, the entire civil society was against the proposals for modification considered abusive and discriminatory, according to the minute prepared. A petition was launched and entitled “Romanian ethnic people say not a resolute changes to the law of Romanian citizenship”, signed by over 7000 people:
The civil society organized protests against these abuses, being supported by public personalities, both in Bucharest and in Chisinau. So good was this legislative change, that after adopting and sending it to promulgation, the High Court of Cassation and Justice appealed to the Constitutional Court, because “by the regulatory mode, with the non-observance of the demands of clarity and predictability, the path of arbitrariness” is opened and violates the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Citizenship can be rejected on reasonable doubts as in the Middle Ages, and the changes violate the principle of the rule of law, adding unjustifiably to the law.
The CCR rejected “political” “in October 2024, the changes being put into practice by adopting Law no. 14/2025, published in MO, no. 218 of 12.03.2025. About the disastrous effects of these legislative changes I wrote, broadly, attracting the responsibility of the responsible that there will be no demands for the Romanian citizenship. 1940, in relation to the unclear and the multitude of the requested documents, documents impossible to procure.
Snow with rains that end of November brings
Hopes swallowed by the fume fog
And Bessarabia again is at the crossroads
Never-leaving the road by no
So many dignitaries of wealth
You went to the jail. So many presidents
Peasant of Bessarabia, who you no longer believe in anyone
Peasant of Bessarabia, what do you want nothing …
Request to the presidency
Dear President of Romania, the Romanian Diaspora-those people who, at each election, have been mobilized to vote and have contributed decisively to the change of the country-now asks for your help. The new provisions of Law 14/2025 are not only an administrative problem, but an open wound in the national consciousness. Romanians from across borders feel betrayed and abandoned by the Mother Madria, put in the humiliating situation of asking for the recognition of citizenship who, morally and historically, belong to them. In your capacity as guarantor of the national unity and the respect of the Constitution, you have not only the power, but also the moral duty to intervene. We firmly ask you to use all the constitutional and political levers you have to stop this legislative and administrative abuse.
Specifically, your intervention is necessary to unlock the situation from ANC and to initiate the emergency review of the Law of Citizenship. You can ask the Parliament to re -examine the law, you can convene consultations with the representatives of the diaspora and the civil society, you can request the Government to adopt interim measures (such as postponing the application of provisions or issuing a corrective emergency ordinance). Any day of delay means dozens or hundreds of destinies broken on the way to the regaining of citizenship, even more disillusionment for those still concerning Romania.
Mr. President, do not let Romania be alone, isolated from its own diaspora. Do not let the law of humility define the country’s relationship with its sons and daughters everywhere. We ask you to act now, with responsibility and courage, to play these people dignity and confidence in the Romanian state. A prompt presidential intervention can prevent not only a demographic disaster (by discouraging the return of Romanians at home and lowering links with the country), but also the condemnation of Romania before the European forums for violating fundamental rights. The diaspora is not the enemy, but a living part of the nation-treat it with due respect and do not allow the injustice to continue!”.
