The Republic of Moldova is the most common country of origin of foreign-born residents in Romania.
Immigration to Romania is less common than immigration to most other European Union countries, with Romania having 3.6% of the population foreign born as of 2021.[1] Among immigrants, the most common countries of birth were Republic of Moldova (40%), Italy (11%) and Spain (9%).[1] About two thirds of the foreign born population consists of labour migrants.[1]
Romania has recently experienced a growing wave of immigration, mostly from the Republic of Moldova, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Southeast Asia, and East Asia[2] and to a lesser extent other parts of the world. In January 2017, 0.9% of immigrants were born in other EU member states, and 1.2% were born outside the EU.[3]
According to DIICOT, Romania has evolved since 1990 from a country of transit for illegal migrants to a country of destination.[4] Within the European Union, the country has the second highest rate of immigration from non-EU countries (86%), just behind Slovenia (90%).[5] Most immigrants in Romania are from Europe. Among non-European immigrants, most are from Asia and North Africa.
Over 40% of the country's foreign-born residents originate from Republic of Moldova. Owing to the former period of union between most of Moldova and Romania, many Moldovans are eligible for Romanian citizenship on the basis of descent. The culture of Moldova is influenced primarily by the Romanian origins of its majority population, being strongly related to classical Romanian culture, and, as such, it is easy for people from neighbouring Moldova to integrate within the contemporary Romanian culture. Many immigrants from the Republic of Moldova prefer to settle in the Romanian counties from the region of Moldavia, because there the culture is more similar to their home country.[2]
Immigrants from Italy and Spain often have close relations with Romanians, including intermarriage (see also Romanians in Italy and Romanians in Spain).
In recent years, considerable numbers of Chinese and Vietnamese citizens work in Romania, due to the emigration of a large part of the Romanian workforce.[2] There are also workers from Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia,[10] India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Serbia, Lebanon, Turkey.[11][12][13][14][15] Many Chinese live in the Ilfov County (the county surrounding Bucharest).
Many employers in Romania hire foreign citizens form outside the EU due to the labor crisis. In order to work in Romania, they have to obtain a work permit and a long-stay visa. After arriving in Romania, the foreign citizens have to obtain a residence permit.[16]
Many immigrant workers work in constructions; the top countries in 2021 for such construction workers were: Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Moldova, Pakistan, Ukraine.[17] Other countries include Egypt, China, Serbia and Sudan.[17]
Africans come primarily to study in Romania. Africans have been studying in Romanian universities since the Communist Era.[20] Most Africans who studied in Romania during the Ceaușescu era came from Sub-Saharan African countries such as Central African Republic, Sudan, DRC, Republic of the Congo,[21][22][23][24] and from Maghreb,[25] because Ceaușescu had a plan to educate the African elites in order to create political relations with such African countries.[20][25] It is estimated that during the communist era, about 10,000 Sudanese young people studied in Romania.[26]
Currently, in Romania, most Africans are students, refugees, guest workers [27] or children from mixed-families of a Romanian parent and an African student or worker who came to Romania.[28] In 2020, asylum applicants from Somalia and Eritrea represented the 6th and 9th highest numbers among asylum applicants in Romania.[29]
Guest workers
In recent years, the Romanian government has approved a quota of 100,000 guest workers per year.[30][31] Common countries of origin are Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Republic of Moldova, Pakistan, Ukraine, Egypt, Tajikistan, China, Serbia, Sudan, Israel, Philippines, Thailand, Ghana, Indonesia, Somalia, Iraq.[32][33][34][35][36][37] The majority of guest workers are from Asia[32][38][39] (these figures do not include EU workers who have freedom of movement).
A 2022 study on Asian guest workers in Romania conducted in Bucharest, Craiova and Cluj-Napoca, among 400 such workers from Asia (which were from the countries of origin of India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia and Laos) found that almost 40% of them worked in constructions, followed by services and logistics & transportation (including warehouse management). Three quarters were men and 60% were aged between 26 and 35 years (average age 27).[40]
Overall, in 2021, the top countries for sending guest workers were Nepal, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Morocco, Republic of Moldova.[46] In 2022, the top countries were Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Vietnam.[47]
According to a 2023 study,[48] there were 120,165 foreign citizens (eg. guest workers, refugees, citizens of other EU countries etc) working in Romania. The top 20 countries for such workers were: Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Stateless Persons, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, India, Bangladesh, Italy, China, Vietnam, Pakistan, Philippines, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Egypt, Syria, France. Over a third of these workers were based in Bucharest, followed by the counties of Ilfov, Timiș, Constanța, Cluj, Brașov, Iași, Arad, Argeș, Bihor.
Comparison with other European Union countries 2023
According to Eurostat 59.9 million people lived in the European Union in 2023 who were born outside their resident country. This corresponds to 13.35% of the total EU population. Of these, 31.4 million (9.44%) were born outside the EU and 17.5 million (3.91%) were born in another EU member state.[55][56]
Demographic features of the population of Romania include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.
Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 2.3 million residents, which makes Bucharest the 8th most-populous city in the European Union. The city area measures 240 km2 and comprises 6 districts (Sectoare), while the metropolitan area covers 1,811 km2. Bucharest is a beta global city, a major cultural, political and economic hub, and the country's seat of government.
Klaus Werner Iohannis, sometimes referred to by his initials KWI in the Romanian press, is a Romanian politician, physicist, and former physics teacher who has been serving as president of Romania since 2014.
The unification of Moldova and Romania is a popular concept and hypothetical unification in the two countries that began during the Revolutions of 1989. The Romanian Revolution in 1989 and the independence of Moldova in 1991 further contributed to the development of a movement for the unification of the two Romanian-speaking countries. The question of reunification is recurrent in the public sphere of the two countries, often as a speculation, both as a goal and a danger. Though historically Romanian support for unification was high, a March 2022 survey following the Russian invasion of Ukraine indicated that only 11% of Romania's population supports an immediate union, while over 42% think it is not the right moment.
Libertatea is a Romanian daily newspaper and online news website covering current affairs, entertainment, sports and lifestyle. It was founded on December 22, 1989 (12:45 p.m.), by Octavian Andronic, as "the first independent newspaper of the Romanian Revolution of 1989".
The Romanian diaspora is the ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in nearby states, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Therefore, the number of all Romanians abroad is estimated at 4–12 million people, depending on one's definition of the term "Romanian" as well as the inclusion respectively exclusion of ethnic Romanians living in nearby countries where they are indigenous. The definition of "who is a Romanian?" may range from rigorous conservative estimates based on self-identification and official statistics to estimates that include people of Romanian ancestry born in their respective countries as well as people born to various ethnic-minorities from Romania. As of 2015/16, over 97% of Romanian emigrants resided in OECD countries; and about 90% of Romanian emigrants in OECD countries lived in Europe, with the most common country of residence being Italy. The vast majority of Romanian emigrants are based in just ten countries, with the most common countries being Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Hungary, France and Canada.
Ioan Andone is a Romanian football coach and former player.
Modern Moldova-Romania relations emerged after the Republic of Moldova gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Pan-Romanianism has been a consistent part of Moldovan politics, and was adopted in the Popular Front of Moldova's platform in 1992. The official language of Moldova is Romanian. The peoples of the two countries share common traditions and folklore, including a common name for the monetary unit – the leu. At present, relations between the two states are exceptionally friendly, especially on account of the pro-Romanian administration of Maia Sandu in Moldova.
The A7 motorway, also known as the Ploiești–Siret Motorway or the Moldavia Motorway, is a partially built motorway in Romania, that upon completion will link Ploiești to the north-eastern part of the country, partly along the Pan-European Corridor IX. It will run along the route: Buzău, Focșani, Bacău, Roman, Pașcani, and Suceava, connecting to Ukraine's M19 highway near Siret.
The Commission for the Study and Evaluation of the Communist Totalitarian Regime of the Republic of Moldova was a commission instituted in Moldova by Acting President of Moldova Mihai Ghimpu to investigate the Moldavian SSR, the state which administered the country as a Soviet Socialist Republic from 1940 to 1991, and provide a comprehensive report with the purpose of condemnation of Marxism-Leninism as experienced by Moldovan people.
Altin Masati is an Albanian retired footballer who played in his career as a left-sided defender for a series of Romanian clubs in the '90s.
Arabs in Romania are people from Arab countries who live in Romania. The first Fellah settlers came in 1831 - 1833 from Ottoman Syria to Dobruja. They assimilated in the Turkish-Tatarian Population. Some of them came to Romania during the Ceaușescu era, when many Arab students were granted scholarships to study in Romanian universities. Most of them were Algerians, Syrians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Egyptians, and Yemenis. Most of these students returned to their countries of origin, but some remained in Romania starting families here. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. A new wave of Arab immigration started after the Romanian Revolution. Many of the newly arrived Arabs came to Romania in the 1990s in order to develop businesses. In addition, Romania has people from Arab countries who have the status of refugees or illegal immigrants, primarily from North Africa, trying to immigrate to Western Europe. In particular, the European migrant crisis lead to Syrian people coming to Romania, although many Syrians were already living in Romania at the time of the crisis.
The People's Movement Party is an extra-parliamentary national-conservative and social conservative political party in Romania.
Afro-Romanians are Romanians who are of African descent. Afro-Romanian populations are mostly concentrated in major cities of Romania. Africans have been immigrating to Romania since the Communist Era.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Romania is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Romania on 26 February 2020, when the first case in Gorj County was confirmed.
The 2020 Ditrău xenophobic incident refers to the incident that started on 26 January 2020 in the village of Ditrău, Harghita County, in Romania, in which around 1,800 ethnically Hungarian locals protested the employment of two, later three Sri Lankan workers by the bakery Ditrói Pékség. The locals, led by the chaplain of the village, protested that the bakery's working conditions dissatisfied them and that they feared the immigrants could impose their culture and threaten the Hungarian local ethnic identity. On 11 February, a petition signed by 1,800 people was sent to the town hall of the village with several requests, among them, the improvement of these working conditions, the end of immigration to the village and compensations and apologies to the population.
Moldovans in Romania include the people born in the Republic of Moldova living in Romania and their descendants. The largest group of immigrants in Romania are from Moldova. Owing to the former period of union between most of Moldova and Romania, many Moldovans are eligible for Romanian citizenship on the basis of Romanian descent. Many immigrants from the Republic of Moldova prefer to settle in the Romanian counties from the region of Western Moldavia as the culture there is more similar to that of their home country. There are also significant Moldovan communities in the largest cities of Romania, such as Bucharest and Constanta (Wallachia) as well as Cluj-Napoca (Transylvania) and Timișoara (Banat).
COVID-19 vaccination in Romania started on 27 December 2020. It was announced that the process would be divided into three phases. Medical personnel would be vaccinated first, followed by the population at risk, and finally by the rest of the population. Vaccination was declared free and non-mandatory. As of March 2022, five types of vaccines were authorized to be used in Romania. This is the largest vaccination campaign in the modern history of Romania.
Beginning at 04:05 EEST on 29 April 2022, a series of multiple denial-of-service attack (DDoS) attacks were launched against several Romanian government, military, bank and mass media websites. Behind the attacks was the pro-Kremlin hacking group Killnet, who resorted to this in response to a declaration made by Florin Cîțu, the then-president of the senate of Romania, that Romania would provide Ukraine with military aid. The Russian Federation, who invaded the latter, publicly spoke against Western military support for Ukraine, stating that it would result in "lightning-fast retaliatory strikes". The DDoS attacks continued until 1 May.
On 18 September 2022, protests in Moldova began in the capital city of Chișinău, demanding the resignation of the country's pro-Western government, amid an energy crisis causing rising natural gas prices and inflation, caused in part by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
↑ Manuel Bogner, Steffi Hentschke, Michał Kokot, Thomas Roser, Franziska Schindler, Frida Thurm: Ukrainische Bevölkerung: Auf der Flucht. In: Die Zeit. 24 February 2022, retrieved 27 February 2022.
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