The period of processing of citizenship of the Republic of Moldova has been changed and now ranges from 20 working days to 6 months. At the same time, it has been approved that the decision to recognise an individual as a Moldovan citizen, which was previously issued on the day of application, may now take up to 6 months. These changes were proposed and approved by the Government based on the risks to state security and public order related to the situation in the region caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The Public Services Agency (ASU), which developed the draft, points to the impact of the geopolitical situation on the increase in the number of people who want to obtain citizenship of the Republic of Moldova, especially Russian and Ukrainian citizens. More than 70 per cent of applicants in the last two years are Russian citizens and about 20 per cent are Ukrainian citizens, according to the approved project.
The ASU also reported the detection of fraud attempts in citizenship applications. The verification of the authenticity of the submitted documents allowed to identify attempts to acquire citizenship of the Republic of Moldova using false documents. These cases were prevented by co-operating with the Information and Security Service and contacting the relevant authorities to approve the requests.
