Amidst another series of heated political statement exchanges between the country's president Traian Basescu and the Prime Minister Victor Ponta, mainly about the ongoing privatization of railways freight operator CFR Marfa, president Basescu has added another tune: his recent statements about Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The president recently said he would like Romanians to live in a single country and have a single citizenship, hinting to a desired union between the two neighboring countries.

He also said he is determined to ask for the Moldavian citizenship: “If we cannot have Romanian citizenship on both sides of the river Prut, at least we should have both citizenship,” said the president. He added that he would like to be a Moldavian citizen after finishing his presidential mandate in 2014, and that this is a sentimental issue, with nothing to do with politics, and that he is not interested in starting a new political career in the Republic of Moldova. Basescu was recently on an official visit to the Republic of Moldova (in picture), where he met his counterpart and the Moldavian PM.

The Republic of Moldova's territory, also known as the Basarabia province,  was part of Romania's historic territory, and was lost several times in history to larger political powers of the era, and then re-gained, to create the larger Romania in the 1918 Union, until finally losing it to the Soviet Union after the Second World War.

The region became independent in 1991 under the name The Republic of Moldova. Various groups have been calling for the union between Romania and its neighbor the Republic of Moldova to remake the historic Romania ever since.

Romania also has a region called Moldova, which adjoins the Republic of Moldova - separated by the river Prut-  and which is however the name of the historic region, still used informally.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: presidency.ro)