16/4/2024
Issuance of Romanian citizenship
In the last years more and more Israeli citizens wish to regain their lost Romanian citizenship or to gain it after their ancestors born in Romania.
Historically speaking, there were very many Jewish people who used to live in Romania before the Second World War, but once the communists came to rule the country most of them found themselves obliged to leave Romania and go to the new state of Israel or to other countries.
This is why presently many Israeli people wish to re-connect with their roots and get Romanian citizenship.
Particularly in the last half year, the interest in Romanian citizenship grew higher and higher due to the political situation in Israel cause by the war in the last half year. There is presently an afflux of Romanian citizenship petitions submitted by Israelis.
Given that Romania is part of the European Union, Romanian citizenship automatically gives you the “European” citizenship will all the privileges included.
Since the political climate is unstable at the moment, Romanian citizenship can be seen as a safety net especially that life in Romania is much cheaper than in Israel.
Regarding the procedure they have to follow up, this one is not that hard, but due to the fact that there are a number of institutions where they have to submit documents in fact things are not that easy.
First you must understand very well who of the client’s relatives was born in Romania and where – this is the most important detail without which one cannot start the procedure. Because people left Romania so many years ago, sometimes it is hard to remember the exact location of the birth especially that along the years Romania undertook several administrative territorial modifications.
Another important step is to find our whether the one born in Romania lost or did not lose Romanian citizenship when leaving Romania. According to this finding you know if the client will present a file in the Citizenship Committee or if he/she goes directly to the competent City Hall in order to register his /her Israeli civil status documents with the Romanian State.
Once the process of registering the Israeli Civil Status documents with the Romanian State is finished the client gets his/hers Romanian birth and/or marriage certificates.
Then, in case there are differences between the birth name and the present name, all changes of name must be registered in Romania so that all the changes occurred in Israel (from the civil status point of view) will be reflected identically in the Romanian civil status records. In other words the same name from the Israeli passport must appear on the Romanian birth and marriage certificate (even if the client was born under another name).
The same registration procedure occurs in case the client is divorced/widow/widower – all changes due to the divorce, death of the husband/wife must be registered as previously explained.
Once all Romanian documents are ready with all modifications performed, the Romanian Passport can be issued.
This procedure lasts between one and half years to three years, depending on the details of each particular case and to the Romanian citizenship status of the clients itself or to his relative born in Romania.
Even if the bureaucracy involved by the citizenship procedure is not the easiest, our Law Office’s specialists handle the most difficult cases given the vast experience due to more than 15 years of citizenship procedure experience.