Romania is creating its legal framework to be able to protect, including militarily, Romanian citizens from Moldova and Ukraine

​A project to amend the national defense law foresees the possibility that Romania can send troops abroad to protect Romanian citizens.

According to some data found on the website of the Ministry of Justice, only between 2010 and 2024, 958,713 applications for the reacquisition of Romanian citizenship were registered, of which 86% with maintaining the domicile abroad.

In principle, it is about Romanian citizens who live in Moldova or Ukraine and who have regained their citizenship based on Article 11 of the Citizenship Law, which expressly refers to Romanians or their descendants up to the 3rd degree, from the territories included in USSR after 1940 (Bessarabia, northern Bucovina, Bugeac).

Based on this provision, many people from Moldova, Ukraine, but also from other ex-Soviet countries (Russia, for example) acquired Romanian citizenship.

In a response sent to HotNews.ro, the National Citizenship Authority specified that in 2023 alone it approved 30,331 citizenship applications based on Article 11.

The draft amendment to the National Defense Law, which is under public debate, provides in Article 4, paragraph 4, that “The President of Romania may order, upon the proposal of the Prime Minister, the necessary measures to protect Romanian citizens who are in danger outside the national territory, according to the law “.

Also, Paragraph 3 provides that “the Parliament of Romania approves the employment of military or non-military capabilities on the territory of the Romanian state or outside it to counter hybrid threats, upon the proposal of the President of Romania, after consulting the Supreme Council of Defense of the Country”.

Romania currently does not have a mechanism through which it can militarily protect Romanian citizens from other states. A total of approximately one million Romanian citizens would live in Moldova alone, the number being recently advanced even by the president of this country, Maia Sandu, in an interview with Digi24.

Also, a large number of Romanian citizens also live in Ukraine, a state currently at war with the Russian Federation.

The draft amendment to the National Defense Law can be consulted here.