Full weekend for President Basescu. After being last Friday, with his family, in the seaside resort of Neptun, and spending the evening at his favourite restaurant Ciresica in Olimp, the president went Saturday to Sulina, Tulcea County, where he met Romanian children and youths living abroad, who attended the ARC 2013 camps programme.
Basescu said in Sulina that consular fees must be lowered for the citizens of the Republic of Moldova and it is “too much” to ask them to have EUR 500 in order to be granted a Romanian visa.
“Demanding a Moldovan citizen to show EUR 500 in order to receive a visa is too much. And we will have to find a solution. The reduction of fees because very high consular fees for Moldovan citizens will make Romania rich. It is true that there is another level, at which one cannot charge consular taxes on preferential criteria, so we must find a universal formula not only for Moldova,” Basescu stated Saturday in Sulina, after meeting the young Romanians that live abroad.
Basescu added that “we still have very high visa taxes,” although the visas for Moldovan citizens are granted free of charge now by Romanian authorities.
The Romanian MAE informed on July 4 that asking for a proof of having the EUR 500 that would secure the subsistence of Moldovan citizens who seek an entry visa to Romania is provided by EU regulations and cannot be canceled.
Also at Sulina, president Basescu remarked that President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych has kept his pledge not to obstruct ethnic Romanians study in their mother tongue. “Regardless of what political options you have in Ukraine, I want you to know that from my standpoint, Ukraine’s President Yanukovych has kept his word as to not obstructing students learning in Romanian. This is something I highly appreciate and for which I am grateful, because we have taken great pains for this for many years,” Basescu declared at the meeting with Romanian children and youth living outside country borders and who participate in the ARC 2013 camps program.
President Traian Basescu also promised Saturday in Sulina that he will talk with PM Victor Ponta and the minister of Education about the possibility of allowing the young Romanians who go to school abroad to participate in the school olympiads organised in Romania.
Friday evening, the president and his wife Maria were once again at the seaside and went to the Ciresica restaurant of Olimp, in the company of Elena Basescu and her husband, and also of the president’s brother and his wife.