Saturday 30 October 2004

My quest begins

Some of you may know that I'm trying to get Romanian citizenship. So I thought I'd keep a bit of an ongoing diary about how to obtain it.

There are various ways to obtain it. The easiest is if one of your parents is Romanian. I just found out that my mother still has Romanian citizenship. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1965 after escaping from Romanian when it was going through a bad time. She escaped with my aunt and my grandmother
. My grandmother and my aunt were American. My grandfather came over a couple of years later.

Anyways, my mother thought that if she became American, she would give up previous citizenship. This whole time she was under the impression that she had given up Romanian citizenship. The truth was that American recognises, but does not encourage dual citizenship. Which meant that in America's eyes, she was only American. In Romania's eyes, she was Romanian.

Simply put, if one of your parents is Romanian, and have a valid passport, all their children related by blood are also citizens. My mother has to get a passport. She needs her Romanian birth cert and marriage cert. Which needs to be translated. She needs the originals. And it takes a long time. After this, I'll be Romanian and can apply for a passport.
Right now, my mother is requesting her birth cert. I'll write more as soon as something happens.

Giving Up Romanian Citizenship

According to Romanian law, my mother can't give up Romanian citizenship, because it was acquired at birth.


This is from EICEE.
The Romanian embassy in Israel also has lots of information.
(1) Romanian citizenship can be acquired, retained or lost as provided for by the organic law.
(2) Romanian citizenship cannot be withdrawn if acquired by birth.

Dual Citizenship Allowed in Romania
This is from the Romanian citizenship law 21/1991. Here's the updated version.

DUAL CITIZENSHIP: RECOGNIZED. Due to Romanian recognition of dual citizenship, a child born to parents of different nationality is permitted, by Romanian law, to be a dual citizen. The only possible restriction might be the laws of the non-Romanian parent's country.

Family Roots Option
I got this from the Romanian embassy in Denmark. Since 2004, they have taken this information off their webpage. I don't know what happened.

This is for people who's parents don't have passports. Under this option the applicant must have roots in Romania or ex Romanian territories; he must be born in Romania or to have one of his parents born in Romania, or one of his grandparents born in Romania. This will qualify the applicant, his/her spouse and children of any age for citizenship. If many members of same family will apply at same time for citizenship they will have separate sets of documents and citizenship will be obtained separately.

Necessary documents:
1. Birth certificate of the applicant and birth certificate of one parent (the one born in Romania). Original.
2. Marriage certificate of mother (in case she was born in Romania and changed name after marriage). Copy, legalized by a notary.
3. Passport (photocopy).
4. Declaration, made at the Notary office, attesting the applicant didn’t apply for citizenship in the past. In our office.
5. Police record. Translated into English and legalized by a notary.
6. Power of attorney to be represented in their best interest, in front of all Romanian authorities, in order to obtain the citizenship. In our office, legalized by Notary.

All documents will be given in copies, translated in English and legalized by a notary office with the “apostil” approval by the court . If you choose to be assisted by our law office, you will sign a contract between our office and yourself, the power of attorney that enables us to represent you abroad and the Declaration to the Romanian authorities, written in English or Romanian; in case it will be in English we shall have to translate it into Romanian language in Romania, by a authorized translator.

The process takes 4 to 6 months. Most of the time is taken up by the background checks on the client, translations and issue of documents. The applicant will be notified to his home address, by the Romanian Consulate that he/she obtained the Romanian Citizenship and he/she will be invited to the Romanian Consulate for the loyalty vow to the Romanian flag.

3. Romanian Passport
One can prove Romanian citizenship by owning a Romanian passport. Any Romanian citizen who lives or travels abroad is identified with his own passport. Requirements to obtain a Romanian passport (for Romanian citizens living in other country than Romania):

notarised copy of the ”Birth Certificate”;
copy of the Residence Permit (Opholdstilladelse in Denmark);
copy of the previous passport or other document with photo;
notarised copy of the ”Marriage Certificate” (when the marriage took place in other country than Romania it should be transcripted in Romania);
5 photos and fee

Be sure to read about what has happened so far. You can find everything in the quick summary of dates.

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