Financiarul

President Traian Basescu signed on Monday the Decree on enforcing the Law on ratifying the Agreement between the Governments of Romania and Moldova with respect to small-scale border traffic, signed in Bucharest on 13 November 2009, informed the Presidential Administration.

The senators unanimously adopted on January 14, in an extraordinary session, the draft law on ratifying the Agreement between the Governments of Romania and Moldova with respect to small- scale border traffic, after being adopted by the Chamber of Deputies. The two countries’ Prime Ministers, Emil Boc and Vlad Filat, signed the Agreement in Bucharest on November 13.

The draft law aims at opening three new border checkpoints and regulating the residence status in Romania at the frontier areas for the two countries’ citizens. Under this Agreement, the citizens of the two countries living in villages and cities situated up to 30 km away from the border may enter the neighbouring country easily. Actually, only Moldovan citizens will benefit from its provisions, as Romanians may enter the Republic of Moldova without visas.

The Moldovan citizens will enter Romania on the basis of a special permit issued for free by the Consulate General of Romania, with a two to five year validity period. Thus, over 1.2 million Moldovan citizens will benefit from a simplified system of crossing the Romanian border. People possessing these permits will enter Romania on a distance up to 50 km. The maximum residence period is three uninterrupted months since the entrance in the country.