The Ambassador of Romania to the USA, Andrei Muraru, said on Thursday that the Romanians settled in the United States supported Romania’s accession to NATO by sending letters to the American Congress, showing that this could also work in the case of the Visa Waiver program, according to Agerpres.

„We believe that the Visa Waiver is a moment when they [ the Romanians in the USA – ed.n.] could rally. We all know that the moment that made Romanian Americans gather around a goal was at the end of the 90s, at the beginning of the 2000s for NATO integration, and I’ll give you just one example: they sent over 160,000 letters to the American Congress, through which they told the members of the Congress why it is important for Romania to be a part of NATO and how useful this would be. We believe that this could work with the new technologies – surely, today you don’t send letters, you send e-mails or have other initiatives, but we believe we can do this,” said Muraru after the meeting of President Klaus Iohannis with the Romanian community on the West Coast of the United States of America.

He specified that the representatives of the Romanian churches in the USA want to support the approach regarding Romania’s accession to the visa program.

„Another network that we want to use are these Romanian entrepreneurs, (…) Romanian teachers or researchers. These people could open some doors, they could influence people to support Romania in this endeavour,” said Andrei Muraru.

According to the ambassador, the Romanian community on the West Coast of the United States of America is very young compared to other communities in this country.

„This community is one that arrived in the United States rather after 1990, after the miners’ rampages, in certain waves in the 2000s and which is very well integrated and cohesive. We have many Romanians who work in high technology and advanced technology companies, we have Romanians who founded very well-rated start-ups, we have Romanian billionaires – there is a Romanian company that is valued at 36 billion US dollars -, we have hundreds of engineers working at Boeing, we have many specialists working at large companies who are in the Silicon Valley area, and we also have advanced technology professors, either at Stanford or at other well-ranked universities. From that point of view, it’s a very resourceful community in many ways – both financial resources, but also resources to rally,” he said.

He also stated that, unfortunately, a depreciation of the community spirit is being felt within the community of Romanians.

„Our goal is to try to bring them closer by using either our honorary consuls or some community leaders and trying to develop this spirit of bringing the community together. It’s not easy at all and the biggest problem we see is the loss language, because by the second or third generation they no longer speak Romanian. It is not an exception, all ethnic communities have the same problems – the Germans, the Greeks, and the French too,” Muraru emphasized.

The Ambassador of Romania in the USA appreciated that there is an interest of the Romanians settled in the USA to maintain the connection with Romania.

„We are trying to make them have a Romanian community life in the United States”, added the diplomat.

He showed that the community of Romanians in the United States is estimated by the general consulates of Romania at approximately one million people.

President Klaus Iohannis and his wife, Carmen Iohannis, met in San Francisco with members of the Romanian community on the West Coast of the USA. On Friday, the head of state is to meet with Romanian entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.

President Iohannis led, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Romanian delegation that participated in the UN General Assembly in New York.

Agerpres