The local authorities have received an increasing number of requests for passports over the past two weeks, and several passport centers had to extend their working hours to keep up with the demand.

Between March 1 and March 8, there were 191.84% more requests for passports compared to the same period in February 2022 and 417% more requests compared to the same period last year, the Interior Affairs Ministry (MAI) said.

When it comes to online bookings for the issuing of passports, these rose 121.42% compared to the February 1 - February 8 period and 324% compared to the March 1 - March 8 period of last year.

The increase in requests comes as the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and amid worries related to the war in Ukraine. “The restrictions were eased, and we need to take into account that people didn’t request passports over the past two years at the level we were used to. For instance, immediately after the state of emergency [e.n. introduced in March 2020] we had only tens or hundreds of requests daily,” Claudiu Porojan, the director of the Bucharest Passports Community Service, told Libertatea.

(Photo: Andrei Tailup | Dreamstime.com)

simona@romania-insider.com