Romanian MEP Corina Cretu said on Thursday that she applied for Moldovan citizenship in memory of her grandparents, refugees from Bessarabia to Romania, according to Agerpres.

It is the second time that Cretu is trying to get the Moldovan citizenship.

„First time I applied for Moldovan citizenship was at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, I was asked for additional documents because, for example, my grandfather was called Alexe in some documents and Alexie in other documents. I am a little surprised by this excessive bureaucracy when it comes to documents. It is obvious that they were the same names of the parents. I was a little disappointed, but I spoke again with the consul of the Republic of Moldova, I submitted the documents again and I do not give up. Because I do not understand how it is very easy for some to get the citizenship and for others less easily, although I have always been with Moldova. Let’s hope that the second application I sent will receive a positive consideration,” Cretu told AGERPRES.

She added that she wants to get the Moldovan citizenship in memory of his maternal grandparents, who fled from Bessarabia to Romania, where they had to start from scratch.

„My grandfather studied at Toulouse and then came to marry my grandmother. Their idea was to go to France, but they couldn’t get past Romania. They came to Romania when my mother was 2 years old and, in the end, they had to start all over in Romania, although in Moldova they were well-off, accomplished people. I grew up with the idea that we are from Transylvania, because my father is from Salaj and I spent all the holidays there. My mother and grandmother did not talk much about the fact that they were refugees from Bessarabia. I found out, of course, with the passage of time. I remember my grandmother in 1978, when she was given permission to visit Moldova once more, and I remember that I was at the North Railway Station and my grandmother said that she could die now because she returned from Chisinau,” Corina Cretu recalls.

The war in Ukraine had a lot to do with her decision.

„When the war broke out in Ukraine, I said to myself that in their memory, because my mother was somehow forced to hide all the time that they were refugees, I must try to get the Moldovan citizenship. I only want this for the peace of my grandparents. It’s all I could do for them to consider themselves reconciled; because they suffered a lot. My family and I feel somehow guilty because we didn’t know all these dramas they went through, and now, when we see what the Ukrainian people are going through, we realise what they also went through before they settled somewhere,” said Cretu.

Cretu attended the release of the English edition of the book „Hostage in your own country”, written by Ion Iovcev, which took place on Thursday at the European Parliament.

Agerpres