Moldovan Population is Actively Entering Other Countries Citizenships. What’s the Menace

The Persistent certification of Moldova’s population by other countries poses risks of a final split in the state, the RTA expert Dorin Mokanu said. Dorin Mocanu, RTA: Along the last years, the presence of several passports among residents of Moldova is becoming a common thing. Someone perceives the entry into the citizenship of another state as a personal act of restoring historical justice or satisfying cultural and national needs. For many, the issue of citizenship is mostly purely utilitarian and opening up additional abroad employment opportunities. According to experts, over the 28 years of the Republic of Moldova’s independence its population has decreased by almost 30% or 1.3 million people. According to this data our country unfortunately leads the CIS, ceding even to Ukraine. One of the main outflow catalysts became wide opportunities for citizens to enter citizenships of other states. Mainly Romanian (about 750 thousand), Russian (about 250 thousand) and Ukrainian (about 100 thousand) passports. The principle of dual citizenship is a fairly common phenomenon that occurs in the legislation of both developing and quite successful states that do not see serious risks within. However, for Moldova, as many experts note, this factor has become more and more clearly correlated with the society political moods. A simple example: just remember the sudden jump in quantity of supporters from 10% to 30-35% of Moldova with Romania unification. Even the representatives of the alternative political flank recognize the pattern. So, according to one of the Moldovan party leaders "Civil Congress" Marc Tcaciuc such a situation is due to the hopelessness that our citizens face. Tired with e change expectation people admit the possibility that there can come Romanians with a European level of social security, Romanian prosecutors and other officials more responsible than the current ones. The politician concludes his thoughts with an appeal to the Moldovan elites for an honest surrendering due to impossibility of properly managing the country and disbanding the state. Such a citizenship and politics connection could not go unnoticed by the leading players involved in shaping the agenda of Moldovan state, primarily Bucharest and Moscow. So on January 30, Moldovan MP Iurie Renita, who, according to some sources, has close ties with the Romanian services and authorities, “by popular demand” sent a request to the Romanian leadership with a proposal to simplify and speed up the joining Romanian citizenship procedure for about 230 thousand citizens of the Republic of Moldova. According to the deputy’s information, which the Romanian side had previously tried not to disclose, in 2017 about 94 916 applications for the restoration of Romanian citizenship were received from Moldovan citizens, in 2018 the number of applications was 100 157, in 2019 - 100 147. In 2017, 85,307 applications were approved, and in 2018--2019. - only 43 551 got the approval. Given the addressing and nature of the request, it is highly likely that such kind of requests will be granted, and Bucharest will respond to the aspirations of its compatriots. It is possible that such promptness and coherence of actions is also a reaction to the systemic decisions of Moscow, which in recent years has sought to maximize the liberalization of legislation in terms of granting its citizenship to residents of the former Soviet republics. For example, on January 28, the head of the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Valentina Kazakova, told one of the Russian publications that about 11 bills on simplifying the procedures for acquiring Russian citizenship, including for Moldovans, are under consideration in the government and parliament of the Russian Federation. Given the combination of these circumstances and difficult regional processes, one can confidently say that the conditions under which the population of the Republic of Moldova will be able to “fully” and without much difficulty enter Romanian and Russian citizenship will create fatal consequences for the Moldovan state. Already today, one can clearly see how the contours of a possible political fault line is emerging, when on the left bank of the Dniester several hundred thousand inhabitants, including more than 200 thousand Russian citizens, do not connect their future with Moldova, and on the right bank even more people see Romanian citizenship prospects exclusively being a part of the neighboring country.