Immigrant Integration Barometer, 2015 edition

Transcription

Immigrant Integration Barometer,
2015 edition
Immigrant Integration Barometer 2015
This document was produced within the project "Research and Information Centre on Immigrant
Integration" implemented by the Romanian Association for Health Promotion in partnership with the
Open Society Foundation. The project was financed from the European Fund for Integration of Third
Country Nationals through the general programme "Solidarity and management of migration flows"
(ref: IF/11.01-03.01) of the European Union, managed in Romania by the Ministry of the Interior
through the General Inspectorate for Immigration as Contracting Authority.
Annual Programme 2013
Date of issuance: June 2015, third edition
Addresses for notifications: [email protected]
Romanian Association for Health Promotion - 9 Comăniţa St., 020557, District 2, Bucharest
Open Society Foundation - 33 Căderea Bastiliei St., 010613, District 1, Bucharest
The content of this material does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union.
Authors:
Ovidiu Voicu (coordinator)
Andra Bucur
Victoria Cojocariu
Luciana Lăzărescu
Marana Matei
Daniela Tarnovschi
Editor:
Bianca Floarea
2
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Andra Bucur has a graduate diploma in Law and two master degrees in international law and human
rights at Lyon III University and in comparative private law at the Faculty of Law within “Babes-Bolyai”
University. Andra started working in the field of migration as a legal adviser for asylum seekers and
continued with research activities and analyses of legislation in this field.
Victoria Cojocariu graduated from the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work at the University of
Bucharest, specialising in Sociology (graduate and postgraduate levels). She is currently a PhD candidate
at the same institution. Victoria collaborated with several NGOs during her faculty years, being involved
in research activities and in stimulating public participation as part of numerous projects in the field of
migration. She was in charge with coordinating the research activity of this study.
Luciana Lăzărescu is a member of the Romanian Association for Health Promotion team and is part of
the multidisciplinary research team at the Research and Documentation Center on Immigrants’
Integration. Luciana has more than seven years experience of working with immigrants and monitoring
their integration in Romania.
Marana Matei is a graduate of the Faculty of Psychology at the University College London in the United
Kingdom and of the Master Programme in Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Education
Sciences - University of Bucharest. She is interested in research and applied psychology, such as psychotherapy based on scientific evidence. Marana is accredited with the College of Psychologists in the
following fields of specialisation: clinical psychology, psychological counselling and psychotherapy.
Daniela Tarnovschi obtained her diploma of sociologist from “Babeș-Bolyai” University in Cluj-Napoca,
after having completed an in-depth study programme in communication sciences at the same
university. She was a fellow of the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students and of the
Swiss National Science Foundation, of the States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs in the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California-San Diego,
and of the Open Society Foundation. Daniela was part of the research team who contributed to the
Study on the immigration phenomenon in Romania. Integration of foreigners in the Romanian society,
funded by the General Inspectorate for Immigration.
Ovidiu Voicu is a political scientist and a specialist in social statistics. For the past 12 years Ovidiu has
been coordinating the social research programmes of the Soros Foundation Romania (currently the
Open Society Foundation), out of which the Public Opinion Barometer and the Romanian Electoral
Studies series have been the most visible. Ovidiu is the author of numerous articles and chapters in
studies related to education, civic involvement, migration, and since 2012 he is the director of the Public
Policies Department at the Foundation. Ovidiu is the coordinator of the Immigrant Integration
Barometer.
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CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS......................................................................................................... 3
CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................... 4
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................... 5
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. 6
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... 7
I. ABOUT THE RESEARCH ..................................................................................................... 9
I.1. Defining the population studied............................................................................................................................... 9
I.2. Dimensions of the analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 10
I.3. Methods and data sources ...................................................................................................................................... 11
II. IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION BAROMETER 2015 .............................................................. 14
II.1. Overview ....................................................................................................................................................................... 14
II.2. An analysis of integration dimensions ............................................................................................................... 18
1. Free movement (Andra Bucur) .................................................................................................................................... 18
2. Public opinion (Daniela Tarnovschi).......................................................................................................................... 25
3. Strategic planning (Ovidiu Voicu) .............................................................................................................................. 35
4. Non-discrimination (Andra Bucur) ............................................................................................................................. 38
5. Language and culture of the host country (Marana Matei) .......................................................................... 45
6. Education (Marana Matei) ............................................................................................................................................ 54
7. Family reunification (Victoria Cojocariu) ................................................................................................................ 62
8. Welfare (Luciana Lăzărescu) ........................................................................................................................................ 65
9. Labour and economic integration (Victoria Cojocariu and Marana Matei) ........................................... 85
10. Civil society involvement (Luciana Lăzărescu) ................................................................................................... 93
11. Cultural rights (Ovidiu Voicu) ................................................................................................................................. 102
12. Civic and political participation (Daniela Tarnovschi) ................................................................................ 107
13. Obtaining citizenship and political integration (Victoria Cojocariu) .................................................... 114
ANNEX: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE RESEARCH .................................................. 118
The integration dimensions: evolution 2013-2015 ............................................................................................. 120
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 124
4
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ANOFM - National Employment Agency (Agenţia Naţională pentru Ocuparea Forţei de Muncă)
ANAF – National Agency for Fiscal Administration (Agenţia Naţională de Administrare Fiscală)
ANPIS – National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection (Agenţia Naţională pentru Plăţi şi Inspecţe
Socială)
ARACIP – Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in the Preuniversity Education System (Agenţia
Română de Asigurare a Calităţii în Învăţământul Preuniversitar)
IIB– Immigrant Integration Barometer
CDCDI – Research and Information Centre on Immigrant Integration (Centru de Documentare şi
Cercetare în Domeniul Integrării Imigranţilor)
CMBRAE – Bucharest Municipality Centre for Educational Resources and Support (Centrul Municipiului
Bucureşti de Resurse şi Asistenţă Educaţională)
CNAS – National Health Insurance House (Casa Naţională de Asigurări de Sănătate)
CNCD – National Council for Combating Discrimination (Consiliul Naţional pentru Combaterea
Discriminării)
CNRED – National Centre for Equivalence and Recognition of Diplomas (Centrul Naţional de
Recunoaştere şi Echivalare a Diplomelor)
CNRR – National Romanian Council for Refugees (Consiliul Naţional Român pentru Refugiaţi)
DGASPC – General Department for Social Security and Child Protection (Direcţia Generală de Asistenţă
Socială şi Protecţia Copilului)
EIF – European Investment Fund
ERF – European Refugee Fund
IGI – General Inspectorate for Immigration (Inspectoratul General pentru Imigrări)
ISJ – County School Inspectorate (Inspectorat Şcolar Judeţean)
ISMB – Bucharest Municipality School Inspectorate (Inspectoratul Şcolar al Municipiului Bucureşti)
JRS – Jesuit Refugee Service
MEN – Ministry of National Education (Ministerul Educaţiei Naţionale)
MIPEX – Migrant Integration Policy Index
MMFPSPV – Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Protection and the Elderly (Ministerul Muncii, Familiei,
Protecţiei Sociale şi Persoanelor Vârstnice)
MS – Ministry of Health (Minsterul Sănătăţii)
IOM– International Organisation for Migration
POCU – Operational Programme Human Capital (Programul Operaţional Capital Uman) 2014 - 2020
POSDRU – Operational Programme Human Resource Development (Programul Operaţional Dezvoltarea
Resurselor Umane) 2007-2013
TCN– Third Country Nationals
EEA – European Economic Area
UNHCR – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Final result of the research along the 13 dimensions ............................................................... 14
Figure 2. Comparison between IIB 2014 and IIB 2015............................................................................. 16
Figure 3. General opinion about immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered this
question (2013, 2014, 2015) .................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 4. Opinion about what the government should do with respect to foreigners - percentage of the
number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ......................................................... 27
Figure 5. General attitude towards immigrants in Romania - percentage of the number of those who
answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ............................................................................................ 28
Figure 6. To what extent do you agree that employers should give priority to Romanians over people
from other countries - percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
................................................................................................................................................................. 28
Figure 7. Opinion on whether foreign workers should pay the same taxes and contributions as Romanian
workers (higher or lower taxes) - percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013,
2014, 2015).............................................................................................................................................. 29
Figure 8. Opinion on whether foreign workers should receive the same social benefits (unemployment
aid, pension etc.) as Romanian workers (higher or lower benefits) - percentage of the number of those
who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015) .................................................................................... 29
Figure 9. Opinion about the number of immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered
this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ............................................................................................................. 30
Figure 10. Opinion about immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered this question
(2013, 2014, 2015) .................................................................................................................................. 30
Figure 11. Respondents' opinion on the necessity of immigrants' integration - percentage of the number
of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ...................................................................... 31
Figure 12. The provision of the following programmes for free by the state - percentage of the number
of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ...................................................................... 33
Figure 13. The best method for the Romanian state to provide support programmes to immigrants percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ........................... 34
Figure 14. Romanians' perceptions of the immigrants' impact upon cultural life ................................ 103
Figure 15. Romanians' perceptions of the immigrants' impact upon cultural life - comparison between
IIB 2013, 2014 and 2015 ........................................................................................................................ 104
Figure 16. The three plans of the research ............................................................................................ 118
LIST OF TABLES
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Stages and dimensions of IIB 2015 ........................................................................................... 11
Table 2. Data sources and topics covered by the research..................................................................... 12
Table 3. Research methods ..................................................................................................................... 12
Table 4. Calculation method for the final scores. ................................................................................... 15
Table 5. Stages and dimensions of IIB 2014 and IIB 2015 - comparison ................................................ 16
Table 6. Analysis of the Free Movement dimension ............................................................................... 18
Table 7. Free movement: final evaluation .............................................................................................. 24
Table 8. Analysis of the Public Opinion dimension ................................................................................. 26
Table 9. Opinion about the number of immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered
this question (2013, 2014, 2015) ............................................................................................................. 29
Table 10. Opinion on the criteria which an immigrant should meet to be considered integrated in the
Romanian society - percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
................................................................................................................................................................. 32
Table 11. Average of answers regarding support programmes for immigrants .................................... 32
Table 12. Public opinion: final assessment ............................................................................................. 34
Table 13. Analysis of the Strategic Planning dimension ......................................................................... 35
Table 14. Strategic planning: final evaluation ........................................................................................ 38
Table 15. Analysis of the Non-discrimination dimension ....................................................................... 38
Table 16. Non-discrimination: final evaluation ...................................................................................... 44
Table 17. Analysis of the Language and culture of the host country dimension .................................... 46
Table 18. Categories of ISJs depending on the responses provided to the request for information as per
Law 544/2001, with respect to the language and culture courses for immigrants ................................ 47
Table 19. Longitudinal data on the demand for introductory course in Romanian language at local level,
about which we have information........................................................................................................... 49
Table 20. Language and culture of the host country: final evaluation ................................................... 52
Table 21. Analysis of the Education dimension ...................................................................................... 54
Table 22. The number of third country immigrants registered in the Romanian education system in the
academic year 2014-2015 ....................................................................................................................... 57
Table 23. Education: final evaluation ..................................................................................................... 59
Table 24. Analysis of the Family Reunification dimension...................................................................... 62
Table 25. Family reunification: final evaluation ..................................................................................... 64
Table 26. Analysis of the Welfare dimension ......................................................................................... 67
Table 27. Pensions granted by the Romanian state to third country nationals (2014) .......................... 78
7
Table 28. Number of immigrants who benefited from various types of services in Romania (2014) .... 79
Table 29. Welfare: final evaluation ........................................................................................................ 80
Table 30. Analysis of the Labour and economic integration dimension ................................................. 85
Table 31. Labour and economic integration: evaluation of the Easy Professional Recognition indicator
................................................................................................................................................................. 87
Table 32. Labour and economic integration: final evaluation of the Easy Professional Recognition
indicator .................................................................................................................................................. 88
Table 33. Labour and economic integration: evaluation of the indicator: Applying the Blue Card
instrument ............................................................................................................................................... 88
Table 34. Labour and economic integration: final evaluation of the indicator: Applying the Blue Card
instrument ............................................................................................................................................... 90
Table 35. Labour and economic integration: evaluation of the indicator: Immigrants' access to trade
unions/ union organisations is free ......................................................................................................... 90
Table 36. The procedure for an immigrant's affiliation to trade union organisations in Romania ........ 91
Table 37. Labour and economic integration: final evaluation of the indicator: Immigrants' access to trade
unions/ union organisations is free ......................................................................................................... 92
Table 38. Analysis of the Civil Society Involvement dimension............................................................... 94
Table 39. Civil society involvement: final evaluation .............................................................................. 99
Table 40. Analysis of the Cultural Rights dimension............................................................................. 102
Table 41. Cultural Rights: final evaluation ........................................................................................... 106
Table 42. Analysis of the Civic and political participation dimension................................................... 108
Table 43. Civic and political participation: final evaluation ................................................................. 112
Table 44. Analysis of the dimension: Obtaining citizenship and political integration .......................... 114
Table 45. Evaluation of the indicator: Overall analysis of the legislation and the procedure for obtaining
Romanian citizenship by immigrants .................................................................................................... 115
Table 46. Obtaining citizenship and political integration: final evaluation .......................................... 117
Table 47. Levels, dimensions and stages of the research - comparison between IIB 2013 and 2014 .. 120
Table 48. Levels, dimensions and stages of the research - comparison between IIB 2014 and 2015 .. 123
8
I. ABOUT THE RESEARCH1
The Immigrant Integration Barometer study was conducted within the project Research and Information
Centre on Immigrant Integration financed from the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country
Nationals and implemented by the Romanian Association for Health Promotion (ARPS) and the Open
Society Foundation (the Foundation).
The Immigrant Integration Barometer (IIB) is a tool that examines how the Romanian society capitalizes
and facilitates the social integration of immigrants’, in particular of those originating from outside the
Community area. The study sees its third edition in 2015. The first two editions (2013 and 2014) are
available on the internet page of the Research and Information Centre on Immigrant Integration 2and
the Open Society Foundation3, being published under an open license.
The project Research and Information Centre on Immigrant Integration developed over three years,
between August 2012 and June 2015. In each of these years the research component was resumed in
about the same conceptual framework, developed in the first year (2013) and improved based on the
lessons learned from its implementation and the feed-back from the immigration research and practice
community. Thus at the end of the three years the result of the research activity is a sound instrument,
tested in the field, to evaluate the society’s openness towards immigrants. At the same time we have
available a measure of the progress achieved during the three years of the project.
I.1. Defining the population studied
The notion of immigrant, who can be simply defined as a person going to a foreign country in order to
settle there, covers many social or legal instrumentalisations, depending on the way how that person
reached the foreign country, the circumstances in the origin country, the legislation and the
circumstances in the destination country, as well as on the relations between the two countries. By
crossing all these dimensions we obtain an ample matrix, which still includes terms not agreed upon in
the scholarly literature.
This study, Immigrant Integration Barometer, has several clear dependencies as concerns the research
field (the study population), which are given by the specific requirements of the donor and by the
specifications of the project of which it is a part. In brief, the study examines the status of third-country
nationals with a legal right to stay in Romania. We have therefore excluded certain specific immigrant
1
This section reuses the text of the 2014 edition of the Barometer.
http://www.cdcdi.ro/en/
3
www.fundatia.ro/?q=barometrul-integr%C4%83rii-imigran%C8%9Bilor-edi%C8%9Bia-2013-0
2
9
groups, mainly: persons originating from European Union countries, refugees and asylum seekers, as
well as illegal immigrants.
On the other hand, the study has a dominant component of social research. Previous research studies
have shown that the attempts to implement the concept of third-country nationals into a form
intelligible to the general public failed. The fine legal nuances do not work for the public opinion, for
which an alien is still an alien. At the same time the population studied has two important qualities: it
is the largest group of immigrants and it is the group towards which all the others aim, with the notable
exception of EU citizens. In fact, all immigrants – who by definition want to settle in Romania – take the
first steps by accepting the status of permanence, regardless of what happens in the origin country, and
by obtaining a legal status. The integration of persons originating from EU countries is considerably
facilitated at this moment by Romania’s accession to the Community block.
In these circumstances, it is reasonable, when we speak about the integration - as a general process of our target group (third-country nationals with a legal right to stay in Romania), to extend the coverage
to all immigrants. In this line, the name of the study is the Immigrant Integration Barometer and
throughout the research we will speak about immigrants and not about TCN or other concepts with
technical meanings. Within the quantitative component of the research we followed, at a primary level,
the evolution of public perceptions regarding the above-mentioned sub-groups, as a basis for future
specific research projects.
I.2. Dimensions of the analysis
The specialised literature does not reach a consensus on a migration analysis scheme. This is a
consequence of the complexity of the phenomenon, as well as of the fast pace of change, which makes
it difficult to capture it in a comprehensive analysis. As regards integration policies, a common vision
starts to crystallize at European Union level, which could lead to a consistent package of common
measures. During the three years the IIB research team analysed the different research approaches and
policies, trying to build an innovative instrument, flexible enough to be applied in different contexts.
The multiannual organisation of the research made it possible to gradually improve the instrument.
Thus for the first edition of the IIB the research team divided the immigration phenomenon into 14
dimensions, organised on five levels, and defined specific indicators for each dimension. After the IIB2013 report was published, during the debates which followed, several conceptual objections were
formulated with respect to the proposed implementation. The research team retained several of them
and updated the dimension model or the structure of indicators. A three-level model was thus
described, corresponding to the migration stages, and 14 dimensions. This model proved better adapted
10
to the research objectives, so it was subject to minor changes, namely one dimension was removed as
such and was integrated into the others. The result was IIB 2015, with three levels and 13 dimensions,
described in the following table.
Table 1. Stages and dimensions of IIB 2015
IIB 2015
Stage
Entry
Dimension
Free movement
Public opinion
Strategic planning
Non-discrimination
Host-country language and culture
Education
Family reunification
Settlement
Welfare
Labour and economic integration
Civil society involvement
Cultural rights
Civic and political participation
Naturalisation Obtaining citizenship and political integration
The model evolution and the definition of dimensions are explained in the conceptual framework of the
research, updated since last year and included as an annex.
I.3. Methods and data sources
All the elements highlighted above lead us to a clear structuring of the research data sources. These can
be divided into three categories:

reports, studies, researches and previous articles of public institutions, non-governmental
organisations or universities and associated researchers. These are capitalized through
secondary analysis;

the legislative framework and public policy documents, analysed directly;

new data obtained by the research team in this project and processed by primary analysis.
A schematic presentation of these sources together with the main subjects in focus is shown in the
following table.
11
Table 2. Data sources and topics covered by the research.
Legislation
Fundamental rights
affirmed at
international level
Rights affirmed in
Romania
Services available in
Romania
List of players with
tasks in the field
Citizens
Perceptions about
immigrants
Players
Implementation of
specific policies
Immigrants
Needs
Discrimination perceived
Capitalizing the culture
of immigrants
Roles, programmes,
projects, resources
Tolerance, acceptance
Interactions with the
beneficiaries
Interactions: frequency,
outcomes
Knowledge of rights
Difficulties faced
Assessment elements
Knowledge and support
for specific policies
Cross-cutting theme: the integration programme
Secondary analysis: all the themes above, monitored in reports, studies, articles already published in
the previous years.
In order to capitalize these sources efficiently the IIB team used a complex set of research methods,
summarized in the following table.
Table 3. Research methods
Source / population studied
Legislation and public policies
Methods used
Content analysis
Policy analysis
Institutional players (public
institutions or NGOs)
Mass-media
Immigrants
Interviews (face-to-face, by email or phone) with relevant players
Content analysis (specific documents)
Interviews (face-to-face, by email or phone)
Content analysis
Individual interviews with immigrants (face-to-face)
Group interview (target group: immigrants originating from the
Republic of Moldova)
Secondary analysis on existing interviews (target group: female
immigrants originating from The Philippines)
General population
All the above
Interviews (face-to-face, by email or phone) with immigrant
associations
Opinion poll using a national representative sample, with multitopic questionnaires applied at the respondents’ domicile.
Secondary analysis on existing data
12
We prefer independent sources for the selection of immigrants, i.e. recommendations of persons or
non-governmental organisations who know immigrants and can help us meet them. A selection based
on references from public institutions would have been easier, but in such case problems related to
respondents’ perception might have arisen. They might have made a connection between the
researcher and the authority of that institution, which would have increased the desirable answer
effect.
For the selection of institutional players we made a list of relevant institutions and organisations, based
on the analysis of relevant legislation. From this list we selected players who can offer the best
information to respond to the hypotheses formulated.
As regards the survey, it was proven that it is not practically possible to oversample the persons who
came in direct contact with the immigrants or who live in areas with a high rate of immigration, because
there are not sufficient statistic data for generating an adequate sample pool. In these circumstances,
we used a standard probabilistic sample.
For reasons of space we do not include here all instruments used (questionnaires, guidelines etc.). These
are available for anyone interested on the project internet page4.
4
www.cdcdi.ro
13
II. IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION BAROMETER 2015
II.1. Overview
The implementation and analysis of each of the 13 research dimensions follow the model defined in the
2014 edition. Each dimension has a number of indicators associated, from 1 to 5, depending on its
complexity, which are evaluated on a three level scale. In the following chapters we will present all these
indicators in detail, together with a thorough analysis. For the beginning we propose to the reader an
overview of the final results.
We chose a simple method to calculate the final scores. For each indicator defined the researchers
proposed a three-level scale, intuitively called “yes”, “partly” and “no”, depending on the extent to
which the respective hypothesis is confirmed. The meaning of each level of the scale is clearly defined
for each indicator. We set a number value to each level, then we made a simple average. We considered
that each indicator has an equal share in defining the dimension. Afterwards, for reasons related to a
better visualisation, we transposed the results on a 1 to 10 scale, on which 1 is the lowest value (the
worst situation) and 10 is the highest value (the best situation). The result, per dimensions, is given in
the picture below.
13. Obtaining citizenship and
political integration
12. Civic and political
participation
1. Free movement
10
2. Public opinion
8
6
3 Strategic planning
4
11. Cultural rights
2
4. Non-discrimination
0
5. Language and culture of
the host country
10. Civil society involvement
9. Labour and economic
integration
8. Welfare
6. Education
7. Family reunification
Figure 1. Final result of the research along the 13 dimensions
14
Table 4. Calculation method for the final scores.
Stage
I. Entry
II. Settlement
III.
Naturalisation
Dimension
1. Free movement
2. Public opinion
5. Host-country language and culture
6. Education
8. Welfare
9. Labour and economic integration
11. Cultural rights
12. Civic and political participation
integration
Score
7
10
3.25
4.375
4
3.25
10
6.4
7
5.5
7.75
5.5
political
7.75
The model proposed has an assumed limitation, as a result of granting equal shares to all indicators
within a dimension. Although the indicators were designed in such a way as to cover the dimensions
evenly, it is a matter of discussion to what extent some are more important than others. For instance
the Civic and political participation dimension has indicators for civic involvement and for exerting
political rights. While in the first case there are no legal restrictions or practical barriers, Romanian
legislation does not grant any political right to immigrants who have no citizenship, on the contrary, it
forbids them to undertake certain types of activities. With equal weights, the score is at the middle of
the scale, but in fact the restrictions to political involvement are unjustifiably high, restricting some
fundamental rights. If seen from the point of view of rights, the situation of this dimension should have
had a lower score. A compromise is however necessary, so that the model should remain applicable. In
order to respond to this issue, the research team refined the indicators every year, as part of their
permanent concern to improve the instrument.
Built in this way, the Barometer indicates quite clearly the weak points of public policies on immigration.
The weakest scores are awarded on two key dimensions: strategic planning and education. This is
important because the two dimensions should represent the backbone of immigrant integration. First
of all the state should prove a capacity for strategic thinking and for properly planning policies; this is
far from happening, as shown by the assessment of the Strategic planning dimension. Secondly, the
most powerful integrating instrument is education, not only for immigrants but for anybody; as regards
immigrants, all legal provisions seem to remain only on paper. Two other important dimensions for
integration - access to Romanian language and culture and access to social services (Welfare) – also
15
have low scores, which completes the picture of a state which is too much concerned with control and
too little with inclusion.
On the other hand, the maximum score of the Public Opinion dimension speaks about a society which
is to a large extent welcoming and tolerant to immigrants, in contrast with the strong rejection of other
social groups such as Rroma or LGBT.
We will not conclude the overview before looking briefly at the 2014-2015 evolution. As we expected,
changes are not major, because one year is too short to identify substantial transformations. As we did
not expect, the small changes mean regress, as shown in the figure below.
Immigrant Integration Barometer
comparisons 2014-2015
2015
2014
1. Free movement
13. Obtaining…10
2. Public opinion
8
12. Civic and political…
6
4
2
11. Cultural rights
0
10. Civil society…
9. Labour and…
8. Welfare
5. Language and…
6. Education
Figure 2. Comparison between IIB 2014 and IIB 2015
Table 5. Stages and dimensions of IIB 2014 and IIB 2015 - comparison
Stage
I. Entry
II. Settlement
Dimension
1. Free movement
2. Public opinion
5. Host-country language and culture
6. Education
8. Welfare
9. Labour and economic integration
11. Cultural rights
12. Civic and political participation
III.
Naturalisation integration
2015
7
10
3.25
4.375
4
3.25
10
6.4
7
5.5
7.75
5.5
2014
7.75
10
3.25
5.5
4
3.25
10
6.4
5.5
5.5
7.75
5.5
7.75
7.75
political
16
The diagnosis is stability, with only three dimensions suffering minor changes of scores. We called the
status "diagnosis" because stability may mean a positive or a negative evaluation, depending on the
starting point. If things were all right last year, then stability is good, and vice-versa. If we look strictly
at legal texts, Romania has a well-established legislative framework for supporting immigrant
integration, one of the best in Europe. However if we consider the enforcement of these legal
provisions, we realise that in fact things are much worse. This observation was also made in previous
years and of course remains valid: stability does not help a system which fails to operate properly.
These observations, namely that things are far worse in practice than in theory and that there are
serious problems in some very sensitive spots, are all the more important as the number of immigrants
remains relatively low in Romania. Several years ago, before the economic crisis, the possibility of
Romania, as a new EU country, to become more attractive for immigrants was seriously discussed.
Although such predictions are suspended for the moment, in case economic growth is resumed the
immigration issue will rise again on the agenda. In the meantime Romania wastes some precious time
when it could have established its immigration policies in a favourable context.
17
II.2. An analysis of integration dimensions
1. Free movement (Andra Bucur)
Table 6. Analysis of the Free Movement dimension
Indicators
1.1.
Permissive
entry
conditions
Evaluation (”Hypotheses”)
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
The conditions for The law clearly
obtaining the right and specifically
to stay are clearly provides entry
and expressly
conditions, but
provided by law,
these are difficult
and are not
to fulfil, at least
excessive in
for some
relation to the
categories of
purpose of entry,
immigrants.
for all immigrant
categories.
NO [0]
The entry
conditions are not
clearly and
specifically
provided in the law,
or they are
arbitrary.
Sources and
methods
A review of OUG
194/2002 on the
status of aliens in
Romania,
consolidated.
A review of the
legislation on the
regime of aliens, in
order to identify
potential
modifications
occurred.
1.2. Free
movement
within the
borders
Aliens with a right
to stay may move
and change their
residence freely
within the
country.
There are
restrictions on
moving or
changing
residence within
the country.
It is not allowed to
move or change
residence within
the country.
1.3.
Residence
permit
renewal
Aliens with a right
to stay may easily
renew their
permit for the
same purpose or
for other purposes
than those for
which they
obtained the
permit.
Aliens with a right
to stay may easily
renew their
permit for the
same purpose, but
there are
restrictions to
changing the
purpose of the
stay.
It is not allowed to
change the purpose Request for
information sent
of the stay on
Romania's territory. to the General
Inspectorate for
Immigration
A review of
Governmental
Ordinance no.
25/2014.
Definition of indicators and terminology
The conditions for obtaining the right to stay are clearly and specifically provided by law, when they are
not liable to interpretation or lacunal or when they are not arbitrary. In order to assess the degree of
difficulty of these conditions we will consider objective factors mentioned in the analysis.
As regards free movement within the borders, both legislative and procedural obstacles will be
considered.
According to Romanian legislation, a resident is the alien holder of a temporary residence permit or of
a long term residence permit.
18
The right to stay is granted by the competent authorities to aliens for a determined or an undetermined
period of time, provided that they meet the conditions stipulated for the purpose of stay and that they
meet the general conditions for entry into the country.
The residence permit is the identity document which the General Inspectorate for Immigration issues
to the alien whose right to stay is extended or who is granted a long term right to stay.
Context
Third country nationals or stateless persons have to meet a number of conditions in order to enter
Romania or to obtain a short or long term residence permit. Some conditions are general, regardless of
the purpose of entry or stay, namely the person should hold a valid document for crossing the border,
s/he should not have been declared undesirable and should not have had an interdiction to entering
Romania and should not represent a hazard for national security. Other conditions are specific,
depending on the purpose of entry and stay. Thus in case of obtaining the residence permit for family
reunification, evidence shall be provided on the family relationship and on holding certain housing.
Other conditions apply in the case of highly skilled aliens coming to work in Romania, namely a minimum
salary level they have to receive. The conditions for obtaining the right to stay and the residence permit
respectively can be sometimes excessive in relation to the purpose of stay and to the economic or social
situation in Romania
In last year's research we concluded that, although the entry and stay conditions are clearly provided in
the applicable legislation, namely in Emergency Ordinance 194/2002 consolidated, these are difficult to
comply with, at least for certain categories of aliens.
As regards legislative changes in the field, year 2014 saw some changes brought by Ordinance 25/2014
on the employment and secondment of aliens in Romania and for amending and completing some legal
acts on the regime of aliens
in Romania, which transposes the Single Permit Directive 2011/98/EU and the untransposed section of
the Highly Skilled Workers Directive 50/2009. It is thus no longer necessary for employers to obtain the
employment permit for hiring certain categories of aliens. Before this legislative change, regardless of
the purpose of stay, even when this was family reunification, a work permit was necessary for legally
employing a family member in Romania. This condition was excessive and limited access to the labour
market, with the procedure to obtain the work permit being quite difficult, bureaucratic and even costly
for the employer. The new legislation also provides the employment conditions for Blue Card holders,
that is, highly skilled workers.
19
Assessment of the current situation
Permissive entry and stay conditions
As regards this first indicator, a number of conditions have to be met, depending on the purpose of stay,
which have not changed since last year. The entry conditions to be met are the general conditions
mentioned above and, in some cases, they also include evidence of the means of living. These conditions
have to be met regardless of whether it is a short term or a long term stay. The residence permit for
Romania is granted for specific purposes, which require different conditions. In last year's research we
concluded that the conditions for obtaining the work permit, the residence permit for family
reunification and the long term residence permit for undertaking economic activities are excessive and
dissuasive, and sometimes even discretionary.
However following the adoption of Ordinance 25/2014, the following categories of persons no longer
need to obtain the employment authorisation if they obtained a residence permit:

the aliens who, based on agreements or treaties concluded by Romania, have free access to the
labour market or perform educational, scientific or other similar activities at authorised
institutions;

aliens who are to perform temporary activities in Romania, as required by ministries;

aliens appointed in the management of a branch, representative office or subsidiary on
Romania's territory;

aliens who hold a long term right to stay;

aliens who hold a temporary right to stay for family reunification;

aliens who hold a temporary right to stay for studies;

aliens who have hold before a right to stay for family reunification for at least three years, but
who extended their right to stay independently, following the marriage dissolution;

aliens who were granted a form of protection in Romania;

asylum seekers, from the moment when they have a right to stay;

tolerated aliens, for the duration of their stay in Romania.
Each of the alien categories mentioned above shall meet a number of conditions, more or less
reasonable, in order to obtain the residence permit for the purpose envisaged. However, once they
obtained the right to stay for the above mentioned purposes (family reunification, studies etc.), they
may get employed on the labour market without any additional restrictions related to obtaining the
work permit. This facilitates the labour market integration of these categories of aliens and, moreover,
it is a logical and coherent policy, considering that those people have already obtained a right to stay,
and their living standard depends on their access to the labour market. Prior to this legislative change,
20
the work permit had to be obtained even by the alien categories who are now exempt from this
obligation, making their employment process more difficult.
As regards obtaining the work permit for the other categories of aliens, namely permanent workers,
transboundary workers, interns, seasonal and highly skilled workers, the conditions are expressly
provided by Ordinance 25/2014. We believe that for most of these categories of aliens the condition
imposed to employers, including in the case of interns, to prove they have made efforts to employ a
Romanian, European Union or European Economic Area citizen, is excessive. The efforts the employer
has to do may consist, according to the law, in evidence of having published the announcement in an
international daily newspaper and of having prepared a selection protocol.
On the other hand, as regards the employment conditions for highly skilled workers, the latter have to
benefit from a permanent labour contract or a fixed term labour contract for at least one year; however
the difficulty of employing them consists of the possibility to grant a salary four times higher than the
average gross salary, a condition which is not adapted to the economic context and the situation on the
Romanian labour market.
One incoherent aspect in the Ordinance is the provision of Art. 18, which requires graduates to obtain
the work permit, although persons with a temporary visa for studies do not need this permit. Therefore
we do not understand the reason why a student, who did not need any work permit, as s/he held a
temporary residence permit for studies, should obtain such work permit upon completion of the
studies.
To conclude, for this indicator, the hypothesis is confirmed that the entry and stay conditions are clearly
and expressly provided by law, but they are difficult to comply with in the case of certain categories of
aliens.
Free movement within the borders
In principle legislation enables free movement within the borders for third country nationals with a legal
right to stay in Romania. Exceptions apply only in the case of tolerated persons and asylum seekers,
given the temporary status of their residence permit. A procedural obligation is however in place with
respect to moving their residence to another place in the country - the obligation to notify the territorial
immigration authorities within 15 days, to pay certain taxes and to bring evidence of the new housing
space.
21
Although freedom of movement within borders is guaranteed, from the requests sent locally regarding
the measures adopted for integrating third country nationals, we discovered that the latter do not have
a very high mobility, being mostly concentrated in the capital or in large cities, probably as a result of
the lack of information or opportunities on the labour market or in the educational system.
Residence permit changing
This is a newly introduced indicator, as it often happens that, upon completion of studies, students wish
to remain in Romania and to obtain a work permit for this purpose. Legislation is quite strict in this
respect, requiring aliens to return to their origin countries, to apply for a residence permit for work
purposes from there and then to come back to Romania. This is an excessive and costly condition, which
generated a significant loss for the labour market in areas such as medicine.
The residence permit renewal requires compliance with the same conditions required for obtaining the
initial residence permit and, in addition, the requirement for the alien to have complied with the original
purpose for which the residence permit was issued to him/her and to pay the renewal fees.
According to data supplied by the General Inspectorate for Immigration, in 2013 97 persons who had
come for studies have changed the purpose of their residence permit into family reunification, work
and other purposes, within the maximum 6 month period since the expiry of the residence permit. In
2014 only 38 such cases were registered. As regards the purpose change of those who came to Romania
for work, 76 persons changed their permit in 2013 for studies, family reunification and for other
purposes. In 2014 only 30 persons applied for a residence permit for other purposes than the initial
employment purpose. As regards the cases when family reunification was the initial purpose of the stay,
36 persons in 2013 and 14 persons in 2014 changed the purpose of their stay to employment, studies
and other purposes. In addition to these changes of the purpose of stay, there have also been other
changes for other purposes, mainly for family reunification and for employment. The data analysis
indicates that most aliens who changed the purpose of their stay were those who came for studies and
that the new purpose of stay issued was for family reunification.
Legislation is not very clear with respect to changing the residence permits once the aliens arrive on
Romania's territory, but this happens in practice, and data supplied by the General Inspectorate for
Immigration prove this. On the other hand the conditions for residence permit renewal for the same
purpose are clearly and specifically defined by law and are just as reasonable or excessive like the
conditions for issuing the initial residence permit. The hypothesis is therefore partly confirmed,
according to the table at the beginning of this section.
22
A novelty regarding the submission of applications for extending the right to stay is the launch of an
electronic portal5 which enables the online submission of evidence and documents. Nevertheless the
online submission does not exonerate the person from submitting the documents at the office and
having their biometric data taken over, conditions required for having the application registered. The
portal utility is only for checking the correctness of documents online, so that when the person comes
to submit them at the office they encounter no problems regarding the correctness of the documents
submitted. The portal also appears to be in a testing and development stage.
Recommendations

informing aliens and local authorities on the free movement, work and study opportunities at
local level;

a better information of aliens, in a language they understand, on the conditions for obtaining
and extending the residence permits and on the IGI portal for submitting applications online;

finalising the above mentioned portal and improving the services it provides;

revising the conditions on the preferential treatment of Romanian and European citizens for
employment, as well as the conditions considered excessive for obtaining or renewing the
residence permit and the work permit;

clearly providing the possibility to change the purpose of stay and facilitating the possibility for
students to remain in Romania and to get employed upon completion of studies.
Measuring progress since the previous year
A change since last year is the launch of the portal enabling the online check of documents for residence
permit issuance and renewal. In addition the legislation has changed to the effect that the residence
permits obtained by certain categories of aliens also enable them to access the labour market, without
performing any additional formalities. The other conditions for entry and for obtaining residence
permits have remained the same as last year.
5
The service for verifying applications for
https://213.177.17.74/portaligi/ro-ro/primapagina.aspx
residence
permit
issuance
or
extension:
23
Evaluation
Table 7. Free movement: final evaluation
Indicators
Final evaluation
YES [2]
1.1. Permissive
entry conditions
1.2. Free movement
within the borders
1.3. Residence
permit renewal
PARTLY [1]
The law clearly and specifically
provides entry conditions, but
these are difficult to fulfil, at least
for some categories of
immigrants.
NO [0]
Aliens with a right to stay
may move and change
their residence freely
within the country.
Aliens with a right to stay may
easily renew their permit for the
same purpose, but there are
restrictions to changing the
purpose of the stay.
24
2. Public opinion (Daniela Tarnovschi)
Overview
We surveyed the public opinion for three years (2013, 2014 and 2015), applying a multi-thematic
questionnaire at the home address of selected respondents, in order to create a representative sample
at national level for Romanian citizens. The detailed analysis of the survey results can be found in the
dedicated reports, but some data were used in the various sections of the 2013 and 2014 reports. This
year, which is the last one, we decided to focus on presenting the time series generated by data
collection during all three years. We mentioned since the very beginning that we studied in our research
the public opinion towards aliens in general, as it was impossible to limit the survey only to third country
nationals with a legal stay in Romania. The reason is very simple and was mentioned even in the first
Immigrant Integration Barometer (2013: 10): "The fine legal nuances do not work for the public opinion,
for which an alien is an alien", regardless of their legal status.
In Europe today migration is an intensely debated topic, particularly in consecrated destination
countries. Romania is currently not among the countries considered to be destination countries yet. As
mentioned in the National Strategy on Immigration for 2015-2018, we are rather at the confluence of
migration routes. Speaking about migration, the beginning of the 1990s' saw a certain opening of
Romania towards third country nationals, with certain facilities for entry, stay and for undertaking
economic activities. Legislation has then gradually changed to align to the European Union's one, which
entailed a reduction of the number of aliens. At present the number of third country nationals with a
legal stay in Romania (including Moldavian citizens who are rarely considered foreigners) is not higher
than 100,000, which stands for 0.5% of the total population. In this case, the public opinion survey on
the "foreigners" theme refers mainly to capturing Romanians' attitude towards a "foreigner" (rather far
or very far) with whom they have limited or no contact. Even in such circumstances, respondents have
no problems in expressing their views on this topic. It is important to study the public opinion on
immigrants and the public policies addressed to them exactly for underlying a better development of
national policies on immigration, considering that, in a future which is not too far away, our country will
come to attract more and more foreigners.
For three years we collected data about the condition of the Romanian society, with a focus on the
situation of immigrants/ foreigners. A retrospective look shows us many of the aspects we already knew
before from other researches: at a declarative level Romanians are not tolerant to certain groups of the
country population, but when it comes to foreigners they appear to be quite open and express their
support to public programmes for immigrant integration.
25
Defining the indicators
In the Immigrants Integration Barometer we identified through the public opinion the degree of
acceptance and tolerance of Romanian society, as well as Romanian citizens’ attitude towards public
programmes for immigrants’ integration. We therefore created two indicators (see table 8) which we
then measured using a three level scale.
Public opinion
Dimen
sions
Table 8. Analysis of the Public Opinion dimension
Indicators
YES (2)
PARTLY (1)
NO (0)
2.1.
Acceptance
and tolerance
by the society
The society is
tolerant towards
immigrants (from the
perspective of
society and the
immigrant).
The public opinion is
for and supports
public programmes
for immigrant
integration.
There is an
average level of
tolerance.
Low tolerance.
The public opinion
does not support
integration, but it
does not reject
governmental
interventions for
immigrant
integration either.
The public
opinion refuses
immigrants'
integration and
state
interventions in
this line.
2. 2. Social
support for
public
programmes
for immigrant
integration.
Sources and
methods
Poll
Interviews
with
immigrants.
Poll
Acceptance and tolerance by the society
Despite the fact that Romanians appear quite intolerant towards certain categories of persons, when it
comes to foreigners they appear tolerant, accepting them just like they accept Romanian citizens of a
different ethnicity or religion.
However are Romanians really tolerant to immigrants? The data collected during the three years of
research, which focused on finding Romanians' opinion towards immigrants, indicated that, when asked
directly about their general opinion on immigrants, very few Romanians (under 10%) said they had a
bad and very bad opinion. The data indicate that more than half of the sample prefer to declare
themselves neutral, perhaps because of their limited number of interactions with immigrants.
26
7
62
2015
31
8
54
2014
38
8
65
2013
27
0
10
20
3. Bad and very bad
30
40
50
2. Neither good, nor bad
60
70
1. Good and very good
Figure 3. General opinion about immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered this question
(2013, 2014, 2015)
The longitudinal analysis of responses (of the time series resulted from data collection in three
consecutive years) shows that Romanians are open when it comes to the presence of immigrants in
Romania: more than 30% agree that anyone wishing to come to Romania should be allowed to do so,
and the percentage of those who reject the entry of foreigners in Romania is low (about 20% believe
that the number of foreigners who come to work here should be strictly controlled).
4
4
4. Forbid people from other countries to come
and work in Romania
11
20
20
19
3. Establish strict limits for the number of
foreigners allowed to work in Romania.
2. Allow people to come only if there are
vacancies.
36
32
31
1. Allow anybody to come if s/he so wants.
0
2015
44
39
5
2014
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
40
45
50
2013
Figure 4. Opinion about what the government should do with respect to foreigners - percentage of the number
of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
When it comes to settlement to Romania, about 40% of respondents appear just as hospitable and
open, but the percentage of those who want a selection of immigrants who could settle in Romania
increases every year. The phenomenon may occur as a result of the economic crisis and of a better
information of the general public regarding developed countries’ policies to attract specialists - the
27
migration of "white collars" from us to the West. This higher number of those who wish a selective
immigration may sometimes also be a result of the fact that 2015 data were collected shortly after the
terrorist attack upon the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo magazine and the whole discussion about
immigration which arose in France.
7
2015
55
38
7
2014
47
46
13
2013
0
10
43
44
20
30
40
50
60
3. Forbid immigrants to establish in Romania
2. Yes, after they have lived for a certain number of years in Romania.
1. Allow anyone to settle in Romania if s/he so wants.
Figure 5. General attitude towards immigrants in Romania - percentage of the number of those who answered
this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
What happens when the respondent is asked to answer questions regarding access to resources? Are
Romanians just as tolerant when it comes to jobs? Data show that when it comes to jobs, more than
70% of respondents agree that Romanians should have priority over foreigners for employment, and
more than 80% believe that foreign workers should be subject to the same taxation regime, but also
that they should receive the same social benefits as Romanian workers (unemployment aid, pension
etc.).
Against
7
9
11
15
16
17
Indifferent
Agree
72
0
10
20
30
2015
40
2014
50
60
70
76
77
80
90
2013
Figure 6. To what extent do you agree that employers should give priority to Romanians over people from other
countries - percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
28
1
2013
2
2014
2
2015
0
16
2013
83
9
89
12
20
Lower
7
2014
3
2015
4
86
40
Higher
60
80
100
81
7
90
10
86
0
20
Lower
The same
Figure 7. Opinion on whether foreign workers
should pay the same taxes and contributions as
Romanian workers (higher or lower taxes) percentage of the number of those who answered
this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
12
40
60
Higher
80
100
The same
Figure 8. Opinion on whether foreign workers
should receive the same social benefits
(unemployment aid, pension etc.) as Romanian
workers (higher or lower benefits) - percentage of
the number of those who answered this question
(2013, 2014, 2015)
Are immigrants a threat? When asked to give an opinion about the number of immigrants in Romania,
a significant share of respondents in the sample refused to answer.
Table 9. Opinion about the number of immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered this
question (2013, 2014, 2015)
Opinion on the number of immigrants in Romania
1. Too many and much too many
2. As many as needed
3. Too few and much too few
4. I don't know/ I don't answer
2013
19%
38%
19%
24%
2014
14%
33%
19%
34%
2015
12%
38%
16%
34%
Considering only the responses given, we can notice that, for half of those who have an opinion, the
number of immigrants is "as needed”. The extremes however, the responses "too many and much too
many” and "too few and much too few” balance each other, as shown by the analysis of the three data
series and also considering the error margins of the samples.
29
24
2015
58
18
29
2014
50
21
24
2013
50
26
0
10
20
3. Too few and much too few
30
40
2. As many as needed
50
60
70
1. Too many and much too many
igure 9. Opinion about the number of immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered this
question (2013, 2014, 2015)
Looking more thoroughly into the subject, we can notice that in the last two years of the research
(2014 and 2015) almost 30% of Romanians believe that an increase in the number of immigrants would
be a potential threat for society (the high percentage in 2013 may be a result of the fact that the
economic crisis was experienced more intensely that year). At the same time we can notice that an
almost similar percentage declare that foreigners would threaten the jobs of natives. Nevertheless the
percentage of those who believe that immigrants increase criminality is slightly decreasing, the
percentage of those who blame foreigners for the cultural degradation of the country is not high
(almost 20%), and almost 30% of respondents do not believe that foreigners would become a burden
for the social security system. The interpretation of answers on the preservation of customs and
traditions suggests that Romanians appear to be open to multiculturalism.
57
48 53
6. For the good of the society, it is better when…
1618 22
5. Immigrants degrade the cultural life of a…
3133
34
4. Immigrants are not a burden for the social…
17
3. Immigrants increase criminality.
24
2. Immigrants take some jobs from the natives.
30
43
29
29
1. In the future, the increasing number of…
0
2015
23 26
10
2014
20
30
41
40
50
60
2013
Figure 10. Opinion about immigrants - percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013,
2014, 2015)
30
Social support for public programmes for immigrant integration
The representative sample for the adult population of Romanian citizens was also questioned with
respect to integration and public policies for immigrant integration in all three years of the research
(2013, 2014 and 2015).
In interpreting the data, we aimed first to see whether the direct contact with immigrants (their
presence in the social circle of the respondent) influences their attitudes. In the three years of data
collection it can be noticed that the number of those who refuse to answer or who have no opinion on
immigrant integration was on average 11.5%, which is not a small percentage. The analysis of answers
of those who had an opinion about the subject indicates that 8 out of 10 respondents believe that
foreigners should integrate in the Romanian society.
81
2015
19
80
2014
20
63
2013
37
0
20
40
It is necessary
60
80
100
It is not necessary
Figure 11. Respondents' opinion on the necessity of immigrants' integration - percentage of the number of
those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
What is the recipe though, or rather, what do respondents understand by foreigners' integration in the
Romanian society, what conditions should they meet? The answers were collected by the open
question "When do you think we can say that an immigrant is integrated into the Romanian society?"
In order to be able to create some time series, we compared similar categories. The analysis shows
that in each of the three years the first position was always taken by "knowledge of the Romanian
language, of the culture, history and customs”. The second position was constantly taken by "a stable
job” as a condition for integration, closely followed by „knowing and abiding by the laws”. The data
indicate that Romanians seem quite confident when it comes to the conditions an immigrant should
meet to be considered integrated in the Romanian society: to know the language, culture and customs,
to have a job and to abide by the laws. Some believe that integration does not come by itself but is
acquired after a longer time spent in Romania or when the foreigner has the possibility to settle here
31
permanently. Regardless of how we look at these answers, the conclusion is very simple: from the
point of view of Romanian citizens, a foreigner integrates as a result of their personal efforts - learning
the language, culture, obtaining a job and complying with the laws. The discourse is not in terms of
equal rights and obligations with Romanian citizens, but only in terms of obligations which the
foreigner should comply with. It should be noted that no respondent mentioned the support which
the state should or could provide to facilitate the integration process.
Table 10. Opinion on the criteria which an immigrant should meet to be considered integrated in the Romanian
society - percentage of the number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
Criteria
1. They know the language, culture, history, customs
2. They have a job
3. They know and abide by the laws
4. After a longer period of stay or when they settle permanently
5. They have citizenship
6. They are adapted, they have a behaviour accepted by the
others
7. They have a family
Total answers
Total sample
2013
21%
15%
14%
12%
12%
2014
21%
18%
15%
9%
7%
2015
26%
15%
14%
18%
8%
8%
10%
4%
3%
1274
1516
3%
940
1541
2%
846
1240
Actually the review of life stories collected during the interviews with immigrants indicated that
integration is a personal issue which everyone has to solve as they can. Until recently the Romanian
state's efforts to facilitate immigrant integration were almost inexistent and support was coming
mainly from non-governmental organisations (language courses, legal counselling, support for finding
employment etc.)
Respondents were given the possibility to express their view on the support programmes which should
be provided to immigrants for free or for a cost, or not at all. By summing up all answers received to
this question it appeared that, on average in the three years, 48% of Romanians said they agreed to
foreigners receiving support from public authorities for free, 39% said such support should be for a
cost, while only 12% on average do not agree to such support.
Table 11. Average of answers regarding support programmes for immigrants
Support programmes for immigrants
For free
For a cost
2013
2014
2015
42%
53%
49%
46%
34%
39%
Not at
all
12%
13%
12%
32
The analysis for each individual programme shows that Romanians agree that foreigners' children, first
of all, should have free access to education, then immigrants should benefit from Romanian language
courses and cultural integration programmes. More and more fellow nationals believe that foreigners
should have free access to basic medical services. However on average 45% of respondents during the
three years believe that basic medical services should be provided to foreigners for a cost. A high
number of respondents believe that legal support, social housing and vocational training for adults
should be provided against a cost. When it comes to financial aid, on average 60% of Romanians do
not agree to such support being offered to immigrants by the Romanian state. These answers reflect
both the perspective of Romanian citizens who believe that immigrants should integrate in society
based on their own efforts, and the results of the poor administration of social security provided by
the state to its own citizens. The competition for limited and poorly managed resources makes the
respondents believe that others should not benefit from state aid as well.
28 36
29
9. Legal support
8. Support for family reunification
7. Vocational courses for adults
32
46 51
39
40 45
82
73 78
6. Education for children
58
46 53
5. Basic medical services
17
15 24
4. Social housing
3. Financial support
3539
21
61
52 60
2. Cultural integration programmes
71
67
68
1. Romanian language courses
0
2015
10
20
2014
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2013
Figure 12. The provision of the following programmes for free by the state - percentage of the number of those
who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
In the opinion of more than half of respondents, support programmes for immigrants should be
provided directly by the public institutions competent in this field, while almost one third believe they
should be provided by funding not-for-profit organisations. One of 10 respondents would see the
problem solved by contracting some companies and a very small percentage would wish for a
combination of all these methods.
33
3
4
4
4. A combination of the above
12
10
14
3. By contracting some companies.
2. By financing some not-for-profit nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).
1. Directly, through public institutions
with relevant responsibilities.
2013
21
0
2014
10
28
28
2015
20
30
40
50
57
54
65
60
70
Figure 13. The best method for the Romanian state to provide support programmes to immigrants - percentage
of the number of those who answered this question (2013, 2014, 2015)
Measuring progress
Table 12. Public opinion: final assessment
Evaluation of IIB 2015
Indicators
Final evaluation
2.1. Acceptance and
tolerance by the society
Evaluation: YES
2. 2. Social support for
public programmes for
immigrant integration
The society is tolerant to immigrants and shows acceptance. No
significant changes have been recorded over the three years (2013,
2014, 2015).
Evaluation: YES
The public opinion is for and supports public programmes for
immigrant integration. No significant changes have been recorded over
the three years (2013, 2014, 2015). Immigrant integration is a subject
to which Romanians agree.
Conclusions
A retrospective look shows us many of the aspects we already knew before: at a declarative level
Romanians are not tolerant to certain groups of the country population, but when it comes to
foreigners they appear to be quite open. In addition the public opinion is for and supports public
programmes for immigrant integration.
Recommendations

awareness raising and information actions for the public opinion for a better understanding
and acceptance of migrants;

positively influencing the public discourse on migrants' acceptance and integration;

activating public participation with respect to immigrants' acceptance and integration.
34
3. Strategic planning (Ovidiu Voicu)
Overview
In this edition of the Barometer we have to formulate again the same negative observation. Romania
has a strategy on immigration but its implementation and application remain rather a formal exercise,
with no concern for its impact and with too little concern for immigrants' inclusion and for enhancing
the social benefits resulting from diversity and from the individual contributions of new-comers.
Instead of the expected improvement the situation is degrading.
We have not identified a strategic concern in this area on behalf of public local authorities, which limit
themselves to replicating the instructions received from the centre. This is partly explained by the low
number of immigrants in Romania, but there is no concern in this line even in the few cities where a
higher concentration of aliens exists.
We introduced in the research the Strategic planning dimension to measure the state's capacity to
develop a set of public policies dedicated to the smooth integration of aliens (in this case, third country
nationals) in the host country. The focus is thus on public institutions, both central and local, and on
the programming and evaluation of the public policies cycle. The various aspects relating to the
implementation area and the contributions of other social players are covered in other sections of the
research.
The two indicators used to measure progress on this dimension refer to the two levels of state
organisation. In order to get a picture of the two areas of the public policy cycle, formulation and
evaluation, we used the three-level scale described in the following table.
Table 13. Analysis of the Strategic Planning dimension
Creating the indicators
Evaluation
Indicators
YES [2]
3.1. Immigrant - There is a public
friendly policies
immigration policy in
stated by the
place based on a
central
coherent strategy, action
authorities.
plans and efficient
monitoring and
evaluation mechanisms.
PARTLY [1]
There is a public
immigration policy in place
based on a coherent
strategy and efficient
monitoring and evaluation
mechanisms, but they have
a limited efficiency.
NO [0]
Immigration is not a
public policy
subject or is a
marginal subject,
insufficiently
developed.
35
Evaluation
Indicators
YES [2]
3.2. Positive
practices of local
public
authorities.
There are local strategies
for integrating
immigrants and good
practice examples with
significant results can be
identified.
PARTLY [1]
NO [0]
Examples of local strategies
for integrating immigrants
can be identified, but they
are rather isolated and have
a low impact.
Local authorities
have no strategic
approach to
immigrants’
integration.
The instrument used is secondary analysis, given that we refer mainly to public documents. We have
analysed the national strategies and action plans of IGI over the last years. We added information from
the requests for information sent to IGI and the town halls of the cities with the highest concentration
of immigrants. Last but not least, we took over relevant information from reports and studies
published by other organisations.
The activity of central institutions
In theory Romania introduced an entire programming system, which includes inter-institutional work
groups, multi-annual strategy and annual action plans. In practice this strategy remains rather a
rhetoric exercise and the only aspects seriously taken into account are those relating to security, with
too little concern for immigrants’ inclusion and for increasing the social benefits based on diversity and
the individual contributions of the new comers. The assessment and monitoring mechanisms, if any,
are purely formal.
The main programming instrument is the National Strategy on Immigration for 2011 – 2014
(hereinafter referred to as the Strategy). The Strategy transposes in the national integration policies
the guidelines established at European level through the main reference documents (these documents
are described in more detail in the legal section of the Conceptual Framework of the Research). The
document accurately reproduces the main elements of the European policies in this area. The focus is
exactly on reproducing the requirements derived from Romania's participation in Community
programmes. The document is strongly influenced by the context in which it was created: Romania
wanted (and it still wants) to adhere to the Schengen area and is willing to make any efforts to
strengthen its border security in order to reach that objective. The Strategy is thus excessively legalist
and focused on security matters, leaving very little room for formulating a vision for immigrants’
integration.
36
For instance one of the strategic objectives - even the first one - is Promoting legal immigration to the
benefits of all parties: Romanian society, immigrants and their countries of origin. Apparently this is a
positive integration policy; in reality most references are to measures to limit illegal immigration.
The Strategy was adopted with a significant lack of public consultation. In addition the Strategy is little
known not only to the public but also to other public institutions. For these reasons the Strategy
remains a rather formal document, which does not underlie a modern vision of immigration. All annual
action plans, which could have valorised the Strategy proposals, were adopted with delays: in July 2011
for 2011, in November 2012 for 2012. Things have not changed in 2013, when the action plan was
adopted in August. In 2014, although the action plan was proposed for public debate in January, it was
only adopted in July. None of the plans was accompanied of an evaluation of the previous one.
Things are not different at all with the new Strategy on Immigration for 2015 – 2019. The document
was proposed for public debate only in 20 March 2015 and has not been adopted yet. IGI has made no
effort to organise an authentic public consultation to also include immigrants' organisations. The
content is mostly copied from the previous strategy and does not show any effort to crystallise a vision
upon this field. There is no evaluation of the previous strategy. In general it is not clear whether there
is any form of evaluation of activities in this field.
The responsibility for revising all these aspects lies with the Coordination Group for the implementation
of the National Strategy on Immigration, the responsible institution for monitoring and adapting the
Strategy. Unfortunately the Coordination Group is a very opaque institution; there is no relevant public
information on its activity: calendar of meetings, agendas, proceedings. The only visible results are the
action plans, which as we have already seen are adopted very late. The Group has not proposed so far
any amendment to the Strategy.
There is an indirect evaluation of the Strategy, from the point of view of Schengen criteria. Romania
secured its borders, implemented control systems, adopted the relevant legislation etc. In other words,
security aspects are covered; including “the promotion of legal immigration” - by combating the illegal
one, of course. In other words, the Strategy's focus on security is also indicated by the lack of concern
for implementing measures on inclusion.
The activity of local institutions
A constant element of all three editions of the Barometer is the absence of local public authorities
from the institutional complex which should manage immigration. From a strategic perspective, none
of the cities with a higher number of immigrants has any concerns for generating local policies for their
37
inclusion. Local authorities adopt a passive attitude, limited to applying the provisions of the legislation
in force and only upon request.
It should also be noted that the research had no effect upon changing the practices at local level. Every
year, for three years, the same persons in several town halls received requests for information
regarding their activity in the field of immigration, including references to documents indicating their
responsibilities. We received practically the same answer each year, which can be summarised by it is
not our responsibility.
This can be explained by the low number of immigrants in Romania and by the fact that there are few
compact communities of immigrants who would generate immediate concerns to citizens and local
authorities. However we have not found any interest for immigrants’ integration, not even in cities
where immigrants are concentrated.
Measuring progress
Table 14. Strategic planning: final evaluation
Indicators
3.1. Immigrant - friendly
policies declared by the
central authorities.
3.2. Positive practices of
local public authorities.
Final evaluation
Evaluation: PARTLY
The components of a public policy on immigration exist, including a
relatively coherent strategy, although it is concentrated on security
rather than inclusion. The monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are
purely formal.
The evaluation is decreasing since last year, but without going out of
the "partly" range. The reason of this degradation is the unsatisfying
evaluation process of the old Strategy on Immigration and the
adoption of the new strategy document.
Evaluation: NO
Local authorities have no strategic approach to immigrants’
integration. There are no significant changes as compared to last year.
4. Non-discrimination (Andra Bucur)
Table 15. Analysis of the Non-discrimination dimension
Indicators
4.1.
Acknowledgement
Evaluation
YES [2]
There is a
legislative
framework which
PARTLY [1]
Fundamental
rights of
immigrants are
NO [0]
The legislation
does not
recognise
Sources and
methods
Document
review:
Romania's
38
of fundamental
rights
acknowledges
immigrants’
fundamental
rights, as well as
implementation
and monitoring
mechanisms.
4.2. Legal
There is a legal
protection of aliens framework which
against
addresses
discrimination.
discrimination
among
immigrants and it
is efficiently
implemented.
4.3. Efficient
integrated policies
for combating
discrimination
There are efficient
integrated
policies in place
for combating
discrimination.
4.4. Immigrants do
not feel
discriminated.
Immigrants do
not perceive
themselves as
being
discriminated,
and
discrimination
cases are isolated.
recognised, but
there are no
implementation
and monitoring
mechanisms in
place.
immigrants'
fundamental
rights.
The legal
framework
addressing
discrimination
among
immigrants is
partly
implemented and
used.
There is no legal
framework in
place to
specifically
protect aliens
against
discrimination or
it is poorly
implemented
and is not used.
Policies for
combating
discrimination
exist only in part
or they are not
efficient.
Immigrants
perceive a slight
discrimination
and there are
some cases of
discrimination
notified.
There are no
efficient
integrated
policies in place
for combating
discrimination.
Immigrants
perceive
themselves as
significantly
discriminated
and there are
many cases of
discrimination
notified.
Constitution,
legislation on
immigration
Analysis of the
CNCD 2014
report
Analysis of the
decisions and
reports of the
CNCD case law
Questionnaires
applied to some
immigrant
associations
Context
Romania is a country of origin rather than a destination country for immigration, so Romanians are not
naturally used to diversity. However ethnic diversity exists ever since the 11th century, with a strong
Hungarian minority and a less visible and numerous German minority existing to date. Conflicts and
cases of discrimination often arise between Romanians and Hungarians, as indicated by the reports of
the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD). Nevertheless we concluded in last year's
research that Romanians are tolerant to immigrants, as compared to other categories, and this year's
poll confirmed this. As regards measures to prevent and combat discrimination, the small number of
discrimination cases identified involving immigrants, as well as the small number of immigrants, have
not encouraged the formulation and monitoring of public policies on immigrant discrimination.
39
Definition of indicators and terminology
For the sake of continuity we will reproduce here the same definitions used in last year's research.
The first indicator is not limited to stating the rights and freedoms inherent to a person, the inalienable
rights based on international and European human rights legal instruments, but also includes the
concrete possibility to notify and to obtain damages in case of breach of these rights.
As regards the second indicator, we have not looked for a general anti-discrimination legal framework
but for legal provisions or specific public policies addressing discrimination towards aliens, as well as
for their implementation.
The third indicator refers to efficient integrated policies for preventing discrimination towards
immigrants, namely to the collaboration between different public institutions with responsibilities in
the field of immigration for raising awareness and preventing and combating discrimination in several
fields of activity: on the labour market, in the educational system, in the health system etc. Efficiency
is measured by the presence of agreements or concrete, measurable common actions or measures.
The last indicator was addressed differently from last year. Thus we approached immigrant
associations to find out whether they have faced discrimination situations and whether the persons
they represent feel discriminated. Within this indicator we were interested to see to what extent
immigrants resort to non-governmental organisations and understand the discrimination situations
they are involved in.
Discrimination is defined in Article 2 of Ordinance 137/2000 on preventing and punishing all forms of
discrimination. Thus discrimination involves a differentiation, an exclusion, a preference or a
restriction of somebody's access, for reasons of race, ethnicity, language, religion, social category,
beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, age, handicap, HIV infection, chronic non-contagious disease, the
person's belonging to an underprivileged category or for other similar criteria, and such differentiation
aims to lead or actually leads to the restriction or failure to acknowledge, use or exert human rights,
fundamental freedoms or legal rights on equal terms with other persons.
In addition any behaviour exerted upon an asylum seeker or a refugee, which generates an
intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive context, represents harassment and is punished as an
offence. Any active or passive behaviour which favours or disfavours a person unjustifiably or subjects
a person to an unfair or degrading treatment is punished according to the law.
There are however cases when certain practices, criteria or provisions are not considered
discriminatory if they are objectively justified and they have a legitimate purpose and if the methods
40
for achieving such purpose are adequate and proportional. The legitimate character of the purpose
and the proportionality of the methods used are assessed concretely, on a case by case basis. An
example of discriminatory provision is the priority access of Romanian and EU citizens to the labour
market. The question is whether this provision is justified by a legitimate purpose, such as reducing
unemployment among citizens, and whether this is indeed the most appropriate method to achieve
that aim.
Acknowledgement of fundamental rights
As regards this first indicator, no substantial legislation changes have occurred in 2014 to contribute
to the acknowledgement of immigrants' fundamental rights. Third country nationals enjoy
acknowledgement of their fundamental rights provided in the Constitution and in the conventions and
treaties to which Romania is a party, with the exception of political rights, which are still inaccessible
to immigrants, even at local level. As regards the priority access to the labour market of Romanian,
European Union and European Economic Area citizens, Ordinance 25/2014 has maintained this
inequality, providing in detail the diligences to be performed by Romanian employers to protect the
priority access - publishing the announcement in an international newspaper and preparing a selection
minute.
Although a legal framework is in place which acknowledges immigrants' fundamental rights, the fact
that the authority responsible for combating discrimination, the National Council for Combating
Discrimination (CNCD), has not registered any case last year, any complaint or request for legal
counselling, can only mean that the implementation of such rights is not carefully monitored and that
immigrants are not informed with respect to the rights, services and legal instruments they are entitled
to. At present CNCD does not collect separate data on immigrants and does not perform any activities
or campaigns aimed exclusively at third country nationals.
The monitoring of immigrants' fundamental rights is also achieved by the monitoring of the National
Strategy on Immigration. However the monitoring report of the national annual plan for 2014 is not
available, although its publishing was scheduled for January 2015.
We note thus that immigrants' fundamental rights are acknowledged but there are problems regarding
the implementation or monitoring mechanisms.
41
Legal protection of aliens against discrimination
The National Strategy on Immigration for the following period was not adopted or subjected to debate
in 2014, and no significant changes have occurred since last year in the legal framework for combating
discrimination and the new strategy was not adopted.
In 2014 no complaints, requests for mediation or legal counselling regarding discrimination situations
were filed by third country nationals. Aliens usually fall into the discrimination criterion based on
nationality, when discrimination refers to affecting a person's dignity. The discrimination cases of
Hungarians or Romanians, as the case may be, are also categorized to the nationality criterion, these
being the most numerous cases. The category of discrimination situations based on ethnicity includes
registered cases of discrimination of Rroma ethnics.
Therefore discrimination cases towards immigrants are not visible and are very sporadic, and for this
reason there are no public policies or legislation in place to combat discrimination strictly towards
immigrants.
Efficient integrating policies for combating discrimination
No collaboration protocols have been identified so far between the Ministry of Labour, the General
Inspectorate for Immigration and the National Council for Combating Discrimination, nor integrated
public policies for combating immigrants' discrimination on the labour market or in the educational
system. The low number of cases of immigrant discrimination registered and the openness expressed
by the Romanian society towards immigrants, in contrast with the Hungarian or Rroma ethnics (as
indicated by the analysis of CNCD cases), have discouraged initiatives for integrated public policies and
immigrant information campaigns regarding the options they have and the facts which represent
discrimination.
Immigrants no not feel discriminated
Data were not collected directly from interviews with immigrants, but from interviews with
associations with provide support to immigrants. The interviews indicated that foreigners, even if they
do not know exactly what discrimination means, realise when they are involved in an inequality
situation. The clear case of discrimination identified was the banks' refusal to open bank accounts for
certain categories of aliens, including Syrians and North Koreans, which was discrimination based on
42
the nationality criterion. Many immigrants perceive discrimination as a poor access to information and
legislation relevant for them, in a language they understand. Although organisations were informed
about a series of discrimination cases, they took no steps to notify CNCD and they have no
collaboration with the authorities responsible for preventing and combating discrimination.
Measuring progress since last year
No progress has been registered in this field as compared to last year. On the contrary, Ordinance
25/2014 reiterates the discrimination of immigrants on the labour market as compared to Romanian,
European Union or European Economic Area citizens, whereas the draft Strategy for Immigration for
2015-2018 provides facilitating third country nationals' access to higher education institutions in
Romania for the fields and professions identified as deficient. In order to meet this Strategy objective
on the shortage of physicians in Romania, a legislative change is necessary regarding the performance
of the medical profession in Romania, for which a long term residence permit for practising medicine
in Romania is required – an excessive condition, considering that this requires five years of continuous
stay in the country, which takes into account only half of the studies’ duration. The draft strategy
considers however that legislative changes are necessary in order to achieve the objectives set.
Recommendations

introducing measures to prevent and combat discrimination among immigrants in the national
strategies for immigration and discrimination, such as information campaigns and raising
awareness on discrimination and the remedies immigrants have available when facing
discrimination cases;

revising the provisions which hinder immigrants' access to the labour market by obliging the
employer to perform certain formalities to prove that the vacancies could not be covered by
the citizens favoured by law;

initiating a collaboration between competent institutions in the field of immigration,
combating discrimination, labour and education, in order to elaborate integrated public
policies;

collecting data on immigrants' discrimination and monitoring the discrimination cases they
were involved in;

collaborating with non-governmental organisations and granting funds for the development
of services for the immigrants facing cases of discrimination and for preventing cases of
discrimination.
43
Evaluation
Table 16. Non-discrimination: final evaluation
Indicators
Final evaluation
YES [2]
4.1.
Acknowledgement of
fundamental rights
PARTLY [1]
Fundamental rights of
immigrants are
acknowledged, but there
are no implementation
and monitoring
mechanisms in place.
NO [0]
4.2. Legal protection
of aliens against
discrimination.
There is no legal
framework in place to
specifically protect
aliens against
discrimination or it is
poorly implemented
and is not used.
4.3. Efficient
integrated policies
for combating
discrimination
There are no efficient
integrated policies in
place for combating
discrimination.
4.4. Immigrants do
not feel
discriminated.
Immigrants do not
perceive
themselves as being
discriminated, and
discrimination cases
are isolated.
44
5. Language and culture of the host country (Marana Matei)
Overview
Acquiring linguistic and cultural skills enhances and facilitates social contacts, navigating in the host
country space and accessing integration resources. Considering the complexity of these processes, this
document looks at the support given to third country nationals (TCN) by the Ministry of National
Education (MEN) through the local school inspectorates. Particular attention is paid to the courses
provided through the county school inspectorates and the Bucharest Municipality School Inspectorate
(hereinafter all referred to as ISJ) as they address the general group of third country nationals, adults
and minors alike, regardless of their statute.
At national level we identified 18 higher education institutions which provide language learning
support to the third country nationals' subgroup who came for studies. Other three education
institutions provided courses under the umbrella of ISJs. The NGOs in the field of migration believe
they represent the main body of course providers.
Based on the analysis we identified the following relevant aspects regarding the courses provided by
ISJs. From a legal point of view, access is ensured without any differentiation. However in practice
access is restricted by the extremely low availability of such courses for the target group. The
institutional management capacity at pre-university level is deficient: data are not collected, legislation
is not known, the information required are not correct. The normative instruments (manuals, school
curriculum) are not adequate, actual participation is quite low, and information is not centralised. In
addition, although the focus is on an individualised approach to the learning process and on
adaptability, no mechanisms could be identified to support these objectives.
The Language and culture of the host country dimension captures the infrastructure and ecology of
language and culture courses dedicated to aliens' integration (specifically to third country nationals)
provided by public institutions in Romania. In order to perform this analysis we used three indicators,
summarised in Table 17.
The first indicator analyses the field infrastructure of the state institutions with responsibilities in
providing courses and access to such courses. The second indicator measures the actual use of these
courses by the target group. In the end we used the third indicator to determine the usefulness of the
45
courses provided, measured as a convergence between the targets reached through the courses and
the real needs of immigrants.
Table 17. Analysis of the Language and culture of the host country dimension
Indicators
Evaluation
YES [2]
5.1.
Romanian language
Undifferentiated and culture courses
access to
are organised for
dedicated
immigrants, with
language and
undifferentiated
culture courses. access ensured.
5.2. Immigrants
attend language
and culture
courses.
5.3. Immigrants
benefit from
language and
culture courses.
Most immigrants
attend the Romanian
language and culture
courses provided by
the state.
The courses are well
adapted to the needs
of most immigrants
and they facilitate the
person’s integration in
the host country.
PARTLY [1]
Romanian language and/or
culture courses are
organised for immigrants,
with access ensured only
for certain categories of
immigrants.
Only some immigrants
attend the Romanian
courses provided by the
state.
The courses do not fully
respond to immigrants’
needs and they offer a
minimum of necessary
knowledge, with a low
impact on the person’s
integration in the host
country.
NO [0]
There are no Romanian
language and/or culture
courses organised for
immigrants, or if there are,
we do not see any concern
for ensuring immigrants'
access to such courses.
Very few immigrants
attend Romanian language
and culture courses
provided by the state.
The courses are generally
inadequate and/or they do
not respond to the
immigrants’ information
needs or to naturalisation
requirements.
From a methodological perspective, the main improvement as compared to the previous year's edition
is the exhaustive collection of data at national level. All institutions certified or appointed to develop
and organize language and culture courses at pre-university6 and university level7 were contacted. The
main instruments used are: interviews (with key players involved in the teaching process), analysis of
quantitative data (information obtained following the requests for information sent according to Law
544/2001 to the competent public institutions) and the content analysis.
Analysis
Access to dedicated language and culture courses
Pre-university level
According to the law, aliens who obtained a right to stay or a form of protection in Romania, citizens
of EU member states and of the European Economic Area, adults and children alike, have free access,
6
7
www.edu.ro/index.php/articles/c255/ - website accessed on 04.12.2014, 10.00 hrs.
www.edu.ro/index.php/articles/text/8399 - website accessed on 04.12.2014, 10.30 hrs.
46
upon request, to Romanian language learning facilities. Access is ensured through the school
inspectorates at national level, according to Orders of the Ministry of Education no. 5924/2009 and
5925/2009. However in practice access depends on the availability of courses, implicitly on the existing
infrastructure.
The existing infrastructure for organising and developing induction Romanian language courses at
national level is poorly developed, considering that only three ISJs organise such courses. Two ISJs
organise no courses, although they registered the minimum required number of 10 applications.
Specific information is provided in Table 18.
Table 18. Categories of ISJs depending on the responses provided to the request for information as per Law
544/2001, with respect to the language and culture courses for immigrants
ISJs which
organise
ISM Bucharest
ISJ Iaşi
ISJ Constanţa
ISJs which do
not organise
although they
have the
minimum
number of
applications
ISJ Buzău
ISJ Galaţi
Categories of ISJs
ISJs which do not
organise because they
do not have sufficient
applications
ISJ Argeş
ISJ Arad
ISJ Bistriţa-Năsăud
ISJ Botoşani
ISJ Braşov
ISJ Cluj
ISJ Călăraşi
ISJ Covasna
ISJ Dâmboviţa
ISJ Hunedoara
ISJ Maramureş
ISJ Neamţ
ISJ Olt
ISJ Sibiu
ISJ Sălaj
ISJ Satu-Mare
ISJ Tulcea
ISJ Teleorman
ISJ Vrancea
The situation presented from a quantitative point of view
3 (7.1%)
3 (7.1%)
18 (45.8%)
ISJs which have
not responded
ISJs which were
not contacted8
ISJ Alba
ISJ Bacău
ISJ Bihor
ISJ Brăila
ISJ Dolj
ISJ Gorj
ISJ Harghita
ISJ Ilfov
ISJ Ialomiţa
ISJ Mehedinţi
ISJ Mureş
ISJ Prahova
ISJ Suceava
ISJ Vaslui
ISJ Timiş9
ISJ Caraş-Severin
ISJ Giurgiu
ISJ Vâlcea
15 (33%)
3 (7%)
8
All ISJs were contacted through the e-mail addresses and fax numbers available on their official internet pages.
It is considered that an ISJ could not be contacted when the two contact details available on the official page
were not valid at the time of contact.
9
ISJ Timiș redirects to IGI.
47
Judging by the standard materials used within the courses, the target-group for Romanian language
and culture courses are the aliens who were granted a form of protection and not the third country
nationals. The Ministry of National Education lists the following official materials used for the courses
for immigrants: 1) school manual approved by Order 4059/10.05.2005 ("Romanian language manual introductory course for adult aliens who obtained a form of protection in Romania" and "Romanian
language manual - introductory course for the children of aliens who obtained a form of protection in
Romania"); 2) the school curriculum approved by Order 404/16.06.2004 (the annex "Romanian
language curriculum - introductory course - for the children of aliens who were granted the refugee
status in Romania and for unaccompanied minor refugees") and Order 5335/18.11.2004 (the annex
"Romanian language curriculum - introductory course for the adult aliens who were granted a form of
protection in Romania”). In addition, according to the information provided by MEN, the manuals are
not approved by the National Centre for Evaluation and Examination (the institution responsible for
evaluating pre-university manuals) as it has not received so far any requests for approving the
materials.
University level
Migrants coming to Romania for studies have access and benefit, against a fee, from a preparatory
year for learning and accommodation as per Order 6000/2012. In addition some universities have
introduced in their compulsory curriculum Romanian language courses for foreigners or organise
intensive courses, for a cost or for free.
As regards the existing infrastructure for organising and performing courses at university level,
accredited by the state, based on the requests sent to all accredited state universities, we conclude
that 18 (50% of the institutions which provided an answer) provide support through the following study
programmes: preparatory year, intensive Romanian language courses or courses which are an integral
part of the compulsory curriculum for the study programme in a foreign language. It should be
mentioned that the numbers may be distorted by the fact that 65% of the state higher education
institutions have responded to the requests, as per Law 544/2001.
Participation in language and culture courses
Pre-university level
48
The overall demand10 for the school year 2014-2015 is not registered in MEN. This year MEN included
no statistical data on third country nationals in their response to the request, and the interviews with
key persons in the institution suggested that data are not collected. Based on the information
requested individually at county level we learned that the number of applications is about 130. Out of
these, 83 are registered at ISJs which organise courses. It should be mentioned that the number may
be higher, as certain ISJs with high concentrations of aliens with legal stay (according to an IGI statistics
of 31 March 2015) have not responded to the request. These are: ISJ Ilfov, ISJ Timiş, ISJ Prahova and
ISJ Bacău.
The quality of the data provided by ISJs was also analysed, as a diagnosis-test of administrative
functionality of these institutional structures. Thus the same information (the number of applications
for course registration in the period 2013-2014) were requested in two distinct periods (the school
years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015) by two different methods: 1) requests for access to public interest
data, as per Law 544/2001; 2) notification to the ISJs from a MEN representative. Corroborated data
are provided in Table 19. Based on this information we conclude that the data provided by these ISJs
are not coherent, demonstrating poor administration and/or communication skills with respect to data
on the immigrants' situation. This said, we would like to emphasise that we undertake no responsibility
for the accuracy of these data.
Table 19. Longitudinal data on the demand for introductory course in Romanian language at local level, about
which we have information.
Data collection period 2013-2014
Source
ISJ Constanţa
ISJ Cluj
ISM Ilfov
ISJ Brăila
ISJ Buzău
ISJ Dolj
ISJ Hunedoara
ISJ Braşov
ISM Bucharest
ISJ Iaşi
ISJ Maramureş
ISJ Suceava
ISJ Timiş
ISJ Galaţi
CDCDI researcher
4
4
0
not contacted
not contacted
not contacted
not contacted
no response
50
32
29
redirected to IGI
redirected to IGI
12
MEN representative
6
no response
no response
0
4
no response
0
0
50
0
7
16
155
no response
Data collection period 20142015
CDCDI researcher
6
4
no response
no response
19
no response
0
0
50
32
12
no response
redirected to IGI
7
10
It should be considered that the overall demand is different from the participation/ use of the courses, because
the dropout rate is not controlled. We chose this artifice because we know that county school inspectorates and
the Bucharest Inspectorate centralise course applications, regardless of where these were submitted in the
territory, as per the methodologies for organising and holding the courses.
49
Data collection period 2013-2014
Source
ISJ Bihor
CDCDI researcher
0
MEN representative
no response
Data collection period 20142015
CDCDI researcher
no response
The facilitating and discouraging factors for actual participation are addressed in detail in the previous
edition of the Immigrant Integration Barometer of 2014. We mention here briefly the discouraging
factors identified based on the analysis of data supplied by the ISJs and on interviews with key players
in the education field: poor knowledge of the organisation procedure, the rigid organisation based on
the school year structure, the poor efficiency of the tuition process.
An important facilitating factor is the promotion of courses among the target group. The information
supplied by the ISJs on the promotion methods used indicates that these are improperly promoted by
the organising authorities. The promotion methods mentioned are mainly measures which fall into the
responsibilities category:

providing access and organising courses;

registering the target group to courses;

informing the school institutions with respect to the relevant legislation;

informing the target group with respect to procedures;

monitoring the course development;

publicizing (on the ISJ or IGI websites);

ensuring the teachers' specialization, lifelong learning or providing consultancy;

individualized tuition process;

flexible organisation.
We can therefore say that ISJs only do the minimum required by law, without any pro-active approach
regarding the target group's use of the courses.
University level
In 2014-2015 a total number of 2,230 third country immigrants who came to study in Romania have
benefited from support for learning Romanian language and culture.
Immigrants benefit from language and culture courses
50
The usefulness of these courses is evaluated through the following relevant aspects regarding course
adaptability to immigrants' needs: the specificity of courses, the trainers' competence and the flexible
organisation.
We learned from the interviews that some of the trainers are specialised through trainings within
public-private projects. Nevertheless, representatives of MEN or of the NGO field maintain that the
professors who teach Romanian language to immigrants lack the necessary skills for teaching it as a
foreign language, because they usually are only experienced in teaching it to natives.
As regards flexibility, we have noticed that, in theory, the course curriculum allows for an
individualisation of the teaching programme but, as mentioned before, this flexibility is not supported
by compensatory mechanisms; for this reason it is difficult to assess whether in practice this flexibility
is an advantage or it actually diminishes course quality.
There is a concern for the social integration of immigrants in parallel with teaching the language, but
the methods to achieve this objective are inefficient. The interviews with persons involved in course
development and teaching indicated the perception that integration is not achieved through the
courses, because the course itself is insufficient for learning the language at a level to enable simple
social interactions.
NGOs are currently the main language course providers. The general view is that this service should be
complementary to the courses provided by MEN and not a substitute for the state's efficiency in
managing the migrants' integration issue. The representatives of NGOs which provide courses in
Bucharest (ARCA – the Romanian Forum for Refugees and Migrants, ADIS Association, together with
the APEL Service and ADO SAH ROM) mentioned in the interviews the following key aspects taken into
account for the course development: 1) orientation towards the beneficiary's needs; 2) adaptation to
the trainee's profile and needs identified; 3) trainers have the freedom to customize the courses; 4)
trainers are very motivated; 5) active participation and interactive teaching are encouraged; 6)
feedback culture. Courses have a modular structure for beginner, intermediate and advanced
students, but the courses actually provided are mainly for beginners. A second objective, considered
just as important as learning the language, is creating opportunities to socialize with Romanians and
building personal support relations between trainees. In addition we identified the following levers for
attracting and motivating the trainees: the diversity of training materials, the technical support used
and the professor's/trainer's profile. There are also differences in methodology, each NGO using
different teaching materials.
51
Measuring progress
Table 20. Language and culture of the host country: final evaluation
Indicators
5.1. Undifferentiated
access to dedicated
courses.
5.2. Immigrants attend
courses.
5.3. Immigrants benefit
from language and culture
courses.
Final evaluation
Evaluation: PARTLY
Romanian language and/or culture courses are organised for
immigrants, with access ensured only for certain categories of
immigrants.
Access to Romanian language courses is ensured for all categories of
immigrants, but the lack of a sound infrastructure limits the access in
practice. No cultural accommodation courses dedicated to third
country nationals were identified. Courses are conceived for the
aliens who were granted a form of protection, as indicated by the
norms.
Evaluation: NO
Very few immigrants attend Romanian language and culture courses
provided by the state. MEN does not hold a global evidence of the
use of these services, and problems were encountered locally in
communicating or collecting data on immigrants' situation. The use
of the courses is limited. At present, according to statistic data
collected at national level, about 80 persons are registered at the
courses organized through the ISJs and about 2,200 students benefit
from Romanian language courses as students coming to study in
Romania.
Evaluation: PARTLY
The courses do not fully respond to immigrants’ needs and they offer
a minimum of necessary knowledge, with a low impact on the
person’s integration in the host country. Courses are not designed
based on the target-group needs, they are instead adaptations of the
courses aimed at the persons who were granted a form of
protection. It is not clear how these courses facilitate integration,
considering that these are insufficient even for acquiring basic
language skills. Flexibility is promoted in declarations, but things are
different in practice.
Recommendations
Considering the research results for the dimension “Language and culture of the host country”, we
propose the following recommendations:

centralising the data on aliens’ participation in introductory Romanian language courses.

creating a procedure for collecting data about immigrants, to ensure data quality;
52

informing key persons at local level on the applicable legislation and the work procedures;

revising the organisation and delivery methodology for introductory Romanian language
courses for aliens, according to the target group's needs identified.

preparing a guideline to ensure a better implementation of the methodology.

promoting the courses and informing immigrants about this service upon their entry in the
country.

providing compensation measures for recovering the subjects delivered for the persons who
register after the commencement of the courses organized by the ISJs.

increasing the motivation of teachers who deliver the introductory Romanian language
courses by lifelong learning services or other methods.
53
6. Education (Marana Matei)
Overview
Non-discriminatory access to education is guaranteed for third country nationals. The assumptions of
intercultural education, preventing segregation, education for tolerance and valuing diversity are
provided by law. These principles are integrated in the pre-university education curriculum. In practice
the deficient implementation systems give a different picture. The actual participation of immigrants
from third countries is difficult to determine as no centralised data could be obtained (they may not
even exist), and the school path followed by immigrant (TCN) pupils is not monitored. The educational
system is rather reactive than proactive.
The Education dimension looks at aspects related to the mechanisms for integrating TCN adults and
minors in the educational environment within the Romanian education system. The focus is on
recognising the study documents obtained in the origin countries (indicator 6.1), non-discriminatory
access to education (indicator 6.2), existing integration methods at macro and micro level (indicator
6.3) and non-discrimination and promoting multiculturalism in schools (indicator 6.4). Table 21 shows
a detailed evaluation in this line.
Table 21. Analysis of the Education dimension
Indicators
Evaluation
6.1. Easy
academic
recognition
YES [2]
The study documents
obtained in third countries
are recognised and the
procedure is easy.
PARTLY [1]
The study documents
obtained in most third
countries are
recognised and/or the
procedures are
difficult.
Access to the public
education system is
ensured for all immigrant
categories in the same
conditions as for
Romanian citizens, and the
state encourages the use
of this service.
Access to the public
education system is
ensured only for some
immigrant categories,
but the state is
concerned with
ensuring that this
system is used.
6.2. Immigrants
have access to the
public education
system.
NO [0]
The study documents
obtained in third countries
are not recognised or they
are recognised only for
certain categories of
immigrants and the
procedures are difficult.
Immigrants' access to the
public education system is
restricted and/or the state is
not concerned with using
this service.
54
Indicators
6.3. Appropriate
enrolment and
integration in the
educational
environment.
6.4. Intercultural
education
Evaluation
YES [2]
The immigrant pupil is
enrolled in the public
education system on the
adequate level and is
appropriately supported
along the way to integrate
and adapt to the new
environment.
PARTLY [1]
enrolled in the
education system
based on some
general criteria and
they benefit from
minimum measures to
integrate and adapt to
the new environment.
There are efficient
There is a concern for
measures in place to
promoting diversity
promote cultural diversity and preventing
and to prevent segregation segregation and
and discrimination in the
discrimination in the
public education system.
public education
system, however the
measures taken are
inefficient.
NO [0]
enrolled in the education
system based on some ad
hoc criteria and/or the pupil
does not benefit from any
support for adapting and
integrating to the new
environment.
There is no concern and/or
measures in place to
promote diversity and to
prevent segregation and
discrimination in the public
education system.
From a methodological point of view, the main improvement since the previous edition is data
collection at macro level: all state higher education institutions accredited, all ISJs at national level. The
main instruments used are: interviews (with key players involved in the teaching process), analysis of
quantitative data (information obtained following the requests for information sent according to Law
544/2001 to the competent public institutions) and the content analysis.
Analysis
Academic recognition
In order for third country immigrants to be able to study in the Romanian education system a first step
consists of having their study documents recognised. The legal framework following EU accession was
harmonised for conformity with the European legislation, so that Directive 2004/114/CE of the Council
was transposed in the area of academic recognition, regarding the admission conditions to studies for
third country nationals.
At present CNRED states in an official response that the methodology for recognizing immigrants' study
documents from their countries of origin is “the methodology for recognising the studies undertaken
by Romanian citizens abroad”, with reference to Article 9 of Ordinance 44/2004. This article provides
55
that studies are recognized in the same conditions as for Romanian citizens. As regards data on the
number of recognition applications from third country immigrants, CNRED mentioned that the data
base used does not operate with this parameter, and for this reason information cannot be supplied.
The issue of recognizing study documents or professional qualifications obtained by immigrants in the
country of origin is addressed in the National Strategy on Immigration for 2015-2018, currently in the
public debate stage. Objective 1.2 and indirectly objective 1.1 reiterate the continued efforts to
facilitate the recognition process. It is encouraging that the recognition procedure is a priority, because
at present the recognition and equivalence mechanisms need improvement (this issue is described in
detail in IIB 2014). A concrete case of not granting a right is the case of third country nationals who
completed a study programme without evidence documents; for the latter there is currently no
recognition solution in place. From a logistic perspective there is a formal solution provided as early as
2004, namely the methodology according to Article 11(1) of OG (Governmental Ordinance) 44/2004,
but this is not materialized yet.
Access to the public education system
Non-discriminatory access to education for adults and minors from third countries outside the EU is
guaranteed by the Law on National Education no. 1/2011 (Article 2, paragraphs 4, 5, 6). The method
for inclusion in the education system is regulated by Order 5925/2009 and Order 6000/2012.
Legislation does not provide any solution for adults and minors who lack study documents, the latter
being deprived of the rights they are entitled to according to the law. The only solution for this category
of adults is to register in the Second Chance.
Although access is ensured, actual participation and use of the right to education are not a priority for
MEN. We found there are no centralised data on the immigrants' participation, monitoring and
learning progress, which makes it impossible to estimate or describe the scale of the phenomenon.
The promotion measures to inform and/or attract people to education, specified by a part of the ISJs
who supplied information in this line, are the following: 1) establishing some study centres for
Romanian language and culture; 2) good practice exchanges (through various public-private
intercultural projects); 3) providing additional support for learning Romanian language (additional
classes, study groups, educational activities); 3) defining some objectives for intercultural education.
In addition the promotion measures mentioned include aspects related to the responsibilities of that
institution: 1) informing the school institutions on procedures or on the relevant legislation; 2)
registering in the Second chance programme; 3) sending study documents to CNRED; 4) informing the
56
target group on the procedures; 5) monitoring pupils in the pupil groups. Although promotion methods
with a long term impact are mentioned, these are rather exceptions, with the ISJs mentioning most
often measures in the category of responsibilities. This suggests a poor competence of the persons
within these institutions.
The actual participation of TCN to education is difficult to determine, one of the reasons for this being
the lack of collaboration of some institutions which have not responded to our data requests. The data
obtained from the accredited state institutions indicated the following information presented in Table
22.
Table 22. The number of third country immigrants registered in the Romanian education system in the
academic year 2014-2015
Number of third country nationals depending on the education level
Total university studies
6,713 TCN
(2,612 TCN study in Romanian
language)
Total pre-university studies
397 TCN
Total
7,110 TCN
A MEN representative informs that immigrant pupils prefer private education. Within the same
research data were also requested from the accredited private education institutions on the ARACIP
list, but they supplied no information in this regard.
Appropriate categorization
Once the TCN pupil is eligible to participate in state education, the categorization mechanisms and
further on the support mechanisms are considered (integration and monitoring measures). Thus an
important aspect for immigrants' educational integration is the pupil's registration at an appropriate
educational level.
Registration is rather a subjective process, and the criteria used are general. The responses provided
by ISJ indicate there is no effective practice in place to monitor the immigrant pupil's progress, with
cases when the school progress route (the graduation/ dropout rate) is not monitored.
According to the law, the educational system uses mostly treatment-type measures when immigrants
show an obvious inadaptability to the school environment. We were not able to identify prevention
type measures to prevent school inadaptability. In order to determine the institutional experience with
this group and the intervention procedures in cases when a pupil experiences difficulties to adapt to
57
the school environment and to socially integrate in the school community, CMBRAE11 was contacted.
According to the data supplied, the institution and the psycho-pedagogic support cabinets have not
encountered any TCN pupils so far. In addition they have in place no specific intervention procedures
for immigrants from third countries.
Intercultural education
The teachers’ training is an important component of the integration process in the school environment,
as teachers interact directly with immigrants. The training offer communicated by MEN for the area of
intercultural education includes 20 courses/ lifelong learning programmes for pre-university
professors. These are: Inclusive educational policies and practices; Diversity as life attitude;
Multi/intercultural approaches in the teaching methods learned from the schools in border regions;
Tradition and interculturalism; International holidays – means of intercultural communication; The
kindergarten– an inclusive environment; Intercultural education; Education for democratic citizenship;
Education and support for children whose parents are gone abroad; Education for diversity; Education
and inclusive school; Accepting diversity; Tolerance - inclusive school; Intercultural/ multicultural
education; Learning Arabic language; Intercultural education; Multicultural education .
Although the offer looks rich at first sight, in practice (based on the information provided by MEN), the
following courses can be provided by accredited training providers: Participatory democracy: The
Citizen Project; School-Community Partnership; Efficient communication and civic attitudes; Learning
to live together; Techniques to clarify values and moral education; Formal and non-formal education
for sustainable development.
As regards the general measures for education for diversity and tolerance existing in the school
environment, multicultural aspects are an integral part of education curricula, in the form of measures
to prevent segregation related to national minority issues. For instance MEN refers to the Order MECT
no. 1540/19.07.2007 forbidding the school segregation of Rroma children and approving the
methodology for preventing and eliminating school segregation of Rroma children, as a measure
applicable to the TCN group as well. The national curriculum, through Order MECT no.
1529/18.07.2007 on the development of the diversity theme in the national curriculum, is adapted to
cultivate the principles of an integrative school environment. Reference to these topics is mainly made
within socio-humanistic disciplines. We list here a selection of (optional) disciplines addressing this
11
The institution's activity is regulated by OMECTS (Order of the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and
Sport) no. 5555/2011.
58
topic: Intercultural education – secondary school12; Intercultural education – high school13; Education
for democracy14; Human rights15; International humanitarian law16.
The impact of these measures cannot be determined directly, so they remain just a technical
implementation framework.
Measuring progress
No significant progress was recorded since the previous stage at global level or specifically, at the level
of each category. The evaluation for each indicator is summarised in Table 23.
Table 23. Education: final evaluation
Indicators
6.1. Easy academic
recognition
Final evaluation
Evaluation: NO
Immigrants' diplomas and qualifications obtained in third countries are
not recognised or they are recognised only for certain categories of
immigrants and the procedures are difficult.
6.2. Immigrants have
access to the public
education system.
No significant progress in the field of recognition procedures was
encountered since last year; the situation of aliens who lack evidence
documents still has no solution, although Article 9 of Ordinance
44/2004 provided a methodology.
Evaluation: NO
Immigrants' access to the public education system is restricted and/or
the state is not concerned with using this service.
Access to education is ensured in a non-discriminatory manner but, in
practice, certain categories have no access (for instance: adults and
paperless minors). There are no centralised data on participation to
education, and it is therefore impossible to estimate or to describe the
scale of the phenomenon. The immigrants' educational progress or
failure is not monitored.
The National Immigration Strategy for 2015-2018 is focused on the
need to attract students from third countries. At present, based on data
collected at country level, we estimate a number of 7,110 immigrants
country-wide, both at university and pre-university level.
12
School curriculum approved by Order MECT no. 3774/22.04.2008, revised by Order MECI 5098/09.09.2009
School curriculum approved by Order MECTS 5817/06.12.2010
14
15
School curriculum approved by Order MEDC no. 5208 /25.09.2006
16
13
59
Indicators
6.3. Appropriate
enrolment and
integration in the
educational
environment.
6.4. Intercultural
education
Final evaluation
Evaluation: PARTLY
The immigrant pupil is enrolled in the education system based on some
general criteria and they benefit from minimum measures to integrate
and adapt to the new environment.
The enrolment criteria in the school environment are rather general
and are established at local level. The institution in charge for
intervening in case of immigrant-specific school inadaptability
situations has no experience with this group until present and holds no
work procedures. We were not able to identify prevention type
measures to prevent inadaptability.
Evaluation: PARTLY
There is a concern for promoting diversity and preventing segregation
and discrimination in the public education system, however the
measures taken are inefficient.
Multicultural aspects are an integral part of education curricula in the
form of measures to prevent segregation, related to national minority
issues. The impact of these measures cannot be determined directly, so
they remain just a technical implementation framework. Specialised
training for the teaching staff is provided, but it is not clear to what
extent teachers benefit from them and what are the results achieved.
Recommendations
Considering the research results for the dimension “Education” we propose the following
improvements:

centralising the information on aliens' tuition;

establishing monitoring and information measures regarding the school progress of the TCN
pupil;

identifying efficient measures to attract immigrants to education in order to increase the
absorption rate of TCN students in the Romanian educational system and to cover the long
term labour market shortage;

training ISJ staff on migration issues and legislation to ensure an efficient management at local
level;

preparing a special methodology for certifying pre-university education for aliens with a form
of international protection in Romania and who do not hold any evidence documents for their
60
studies or who, for objective reasons, do not fall within the current legal provisions in the area
of recognition and certification of aliens' studies in Romania.

preparing standardised instruments for guiding the alien’s enrolment at an appropriate
education level.

establishing preventive measures for the TCN pupil's integration and adaptation to the school
environment;

increasing the volume of information addressed to aliens in an internationally used language.
61
7. Family reunification (Victoria Cojocariu)
Family reunification is a niche dimension of the research, which looks at well defined aspects from a
legal point of view. We therefore believe that one indicator is sufficient for evaluating this dimension.
As shown in the following table, the indicator consists of an overall assessment of the family
reunification legislation and procedure.
Table 24. Analysis of the Family Reunification dimension
Indicator
7.1. Overall analysis
of the family
reunification
legislation and
procedure
YES [2]
The family reunification
legislation and
procedures ensure a
reasonable access for
immigrants.
PARTLY [1]
The family reunification
legislation and
procedures are rather
difficult to access by
immigrants.
NO [0]
The family
reunification
legislation and
procedures raise
many barriers to
immigrants.
Analysis
For this edition of the Immigrant Integration Barometer we decided to perform an overall analysis of
the family reunification procedure. In the previous editions the family reunification dimension was
evaluated as reasonable with respect to legal procedures and practices (2013 edition) and attained a
maximum score with respect to the procedure's accessibility for immigrants in vulnerable situations
(2014 edition).
According to data from the General Inspectorate for Immigration, the number of third country
nationals who came to Romania for family reunification remains quite constant in time, around 24,000.
This is one of the main reasons why immigrants come to Romania. Before trying to evaluate the
number of aliens who come to Romania for family reasons as high or low, we should underline that
the previous editions' results show that the immigrant's family remains the institution which takes
over, to the largest extent, the basic integration responsibilities in the absence of an efficient public
system.
At legislative level Romania is slightly above the European average regarding immigrants' access to the
family reunification procedure, as a result of the fact that the required revenue level for immigrants
who apply for family reunification is minimum and there are no conditions in Romania regarding the
age of spouses, the payment of high charges or the existence of incomes above average, as there are
62
in other states. In addition Romanian legislation in this field defines the extended family members and
partners as eligible family members for this procedure. Another important aspect to consider when
evaluating the legislation in this field is the fact that, in the case of Romania, there are no conditions
regarding the spouses' age or the obligation to speak Romanian before coming to the country. An
analysis of these provisions in the context of the conclusions of other integration dimensions suggests
that a potential explanation for the minimum conditions imposed to applicants for family reunification
could be the low quality level of integration services which public institutions are able to provide.
In addition we should also mention the following legal provisions as relevant for the indicator studied
in this edition:

It is gratifying that the Romanian legislation on aliens defines the family by including the
members of the enlarged family and the partners since, at European level, it is defined as
consisting of husband/wife and the minor children (according to Directive 2003/86/CE). In
addition, there are no conditions in Romania regarding the age of spouses, the payment of
high charges or the existence of incomes above average, as there are in other states.

Another rather positive aspect for vulnerable categories is the fact that family members have
no requirement to speak the language before coming to Romania. However this is probably a
consequence of the fact that the Romanian State does not have the capacity to provide such
services now, rather than an unconditional openness towards the vulnerable categories of
immigrants' families.

We also mention that the Romanian citizen who applies for family reunification is not obliged
to provide the series of documents which demonstrate that they legally hold enough housing
space for the foreign family members, health insurance and sources of livelihood. This is a
disadvantage for the foreign citizen, particularly in the case when the family reunification
procedure is required for a member from a vulnerable category.
According to the data provided by IGI, the family reunification procedure applies equally to all
applicants as long as they meet the conditions of extension for this purpose. If the general and special
conditions for extension in view of family reunification are not met, should the applicants suffer from
psychic or physical disabilities, they may be granted a right to stay for other purposes which do not
contradict Romanian laws. There is therefore an openness from public institutions with respect to the
individual approach to each case separately, when the procedure is requested for a person in a
vulnerable category. However no examples have been provided to illustrate these types of
mechanisms.
63
The interviews with immigrants and NGO representatives did not indicate any cases of limiting the
access of persons from vulnerable categories, provided that they met the conditions regarding
documents and evidence of dwelling, income etc.
Data collected during the national survey show that the support measures for the family reunification
procedure, particularly the free ones, are supported by population.
Conclusions
To conclude, a state which is not able to provide efficient integration programmes adapted to
immigrants' needs is likely to impose less strict conditions to residence permit applicants (including for
family reunification) because of their limited capacity, rather than an unconditional openness towards
immigrants' families.
Table 25. Family reunification: final evaluation
Indicator
7.1. Overall analysis of the
family reunification legislation
and procedure
Final evaluation
YES [2]
The family reunification legislation and procedures ensure
a reasonable access for immigrants.
There are no significant changes as compared to IIB 2014.
64
8. Welfare (Luciana Lăzărescu)
Overview
The Welfare dimension includes three components - housing, immigrants' access to the social security
system and access to medical services and social insurance. All these sections in parallel assess the way
how public and private providers monitor the impact of services upon the target groups, as well as the
openness to cooperation with other institutions and organisations in the same activity field.
From a methodological perspective, data were collected by studying the specialised literature, the
documents and public reports of the targeted institutions and organisations, from interviews with
representatives of non-governmental organisations and from requests for information sent to
competent local and national authorities.
The analysis results of the three welfare areas are summarised below:
1. Housing: while on the private market there are no differences between the access to housing
of various categories of population, the main criteria being financial availability and owners'
preferences, social housing is practically inaccessible to immigrants, given the very small
number as compared to the population's needs and sometimes even the restrictive criteria
imposed by local authorities. In the case of persons with a form of international protection,
the local authorities' role of providing social housing is taken over by IGI through its territorial
centres. Some NGOs also provide support to immigrants in need for finding a house and paying
the rent.
2. Social security: the social services and facilities granted to immigrants are focused on minors,
according to the data we obtained from authorities. This may be a result of the pressure put
by organisations activating in the field of child protection, as well as - particularly for Bucharest
and Timişoara - the results of UNHCR’s and IGI's efforts to promote aspects related to the
protection of unaccompanied minors. In addition in the case of services for minors the award
criteria are clearer, universal access is guaranteed and the social security authorities appear
more open to collaboration than other public institutions.
3. Medical services and social insurance. A). Medical services: the lack of money for paying health
insurance is the main obstacle highlighted with respect to medical care. Given the fact that the
extension of the right to stay is conditioned by providing evidence of the health insurance, this
has a significant impact upon the immigrants' prospects to settle in Romania. B) Social
insurance. The difficulties encountered by foreign citizens in obtaining their retirement
65
pensions were related to the unstable economic climate which led to the disappearance of
some companies and generated problems in retracing the contribution period. The applicable
regulations in this field are particularly the bilateral agreements concluded by Romania with
other third countries. Access to occupation services for the unemployed raises no problems
for immigrants, however in 2014 no foreigner received unemployment benefit.
Indicator definition and analysis
The Welfare chapter covers four areas which reflect the basic conditions for immigrants' participation
in the economic, social and cultural life of the destination country. These are: access to housing, to the
social security system, to health care services and social insurance. We tried to highlight the differences
between legislation and practice related to immigrants’ access to housing, social security, health care
and social insurance.
A number of indicators were formulated in order to assess immigrants’ access to welfare services and
benefits; these indicators were then evaluated based on the information obtained from the players
involved in the research.
Unlike the previous edition of the Barometer, this year we defined the term immigrant in the research
instruments we used as "alien from outside the EU, EEA and the Swiss Confederation", in order to avoid
potential confusions. Therefore in this chapter’s analysis immigrants include all third country nationals
with a right to stay in Romania, regardless of their status (e.g. persons with a form of protection, who
came for studies, for employment, for family reunification etc.)
In order to be able to compare the results of IIB 2015 with those of previous editions we used the same
indicators as last year. For certain indicators we lacked relevant information (or relevant information
for certain categories of aliens), and the analysis was therefore limited to the available data.
Health care services and social insurance were covered together as they are based on a contributory
system, with benefits being conditioned by the contribution period. As both systems are mainly based
on employees' contributions, the Welfare dimension is related to the chapter on labour and economic
integration.
In analysing the Welfare dimension we were also interested to see the extent to which public and
private players are concerned with the quality and impact of the services upon the target groups, as
well as the complementarity of services and the relations between different public and private service
providers. We have therefore defined two indicators for monitoring and inter-institutional
66
cooperation. As these are composite indicators, the data for their analysis can be found at each of the
first three indicators analysed.
Easy (open) access to these fields translates in the lack of institutional, cultural and social obstacles to
immigrants’ exertion of their rights in Romania. This requires that all players involved know the rights
and obligations of various immigrant categories and that all population categories receive equal
treatment.
Three work hypotheses were defined for each indicator and scores from 0 to 2 were assigned to each
of them - with figure 2 corresponding to the most favourable situation for the given indicator, figure 1
to a partly favourable situation and figure 0 to the non-compliance with the respective indicator.
The Welfare dimension: creating the indicators
Table 26. Analysis of the Welfare dimension
Indicators
8.1. Unrestricted
access to housing/
accommodation for
immigrants in need.
8.2. Unrestricted
access to social
security for
immigrants in
vulnerable situations
8.3. Unrestricted
access of immigrants
to health care and
social insurance
8.4. Advantageous
cooperation between
the public and private
sectors for supplying
social, medical and
accommodation
(housing) services for
immigrants.
Evaluation (Hypotheses)
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
There are
Access to housing/
mechanisms in place accommodation is
at local level to
ensured differently, per
ensure the access of categories of
immigrants in need
immigrants.
to housing/
accommodation.
Social services and
There are some
benefits are
restrictions related to
accessible to all
immigrants’ access to
immigrants in need.
certain social services
and benefits.
Immigrants’ access
Immigrants’ access to
to medical services
medical services and
and social insurance
social insurance is
is based on a
differentiated,
contribution system, regardless of the
with the exception of contribution payment.
emergency medical
services.
There is a tradition of The partnership is
collaboration
sporadic and is
between public
regulated exclusively
institutions and the
for formal agreements.
private environment,
including the civil
society, for supplying
social and medical
NO [0]
Immigrants’ access to
housing/
accommodation does
not represent a
concern at local level.
Immigrants have no
access to social
services and/or
benefits.
There are major
difficulties in
immigrants’ access to
medical services and
the payment of social
insurance.
There are major
difficulties in the
collaboration between
public institutions and
private suppliers of
social and medical
services.
67
Indicators
8.5. Periodical
monitoring and
evaluation of the
impact of welfare
programmes, benefits
and services upon the
target group.
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
services for
immigrants.
There are strategies
The impact monitoring
and/or programmes
and evaluation is done
in place to monitor/
irregularly, for certain
evaluate the impact
types of benefits/
of services, regularly services.
applied by MMFPSPV
and MS respectively,
and their results
underlie the
programme updates.
NO [0]
There is no concern
for the monitoring and
evaluation of the
impact of welfare
programmes, benefits
and services upon the
target group.
The following information sources and methods were used: requests for information sent to central
and local institutional players (health insurance houses, general departments for social security and
child protection, town halls, retirement pension houses); interviews with non-governmental
organisations assisting immigrants and with immigrants; review of documents produced by public
institutions and relevant organisations for research in the areas of access to housing, social security
benefits and services, medical services and social insurance.
Unrestricted access to housing/ accommodation for immigrants in need
The next section will cover the access of immigrants with a legal stay in Romania to housing and
accommodation; it should be mentioned that their rights are different depending on their status and
the type of their right to stay in Romania.
The accommodation of aliens with a form of international protection in Romania in state centres
The only alien categories with a legal stay who benefit, as per the law, from accommodation in the
General Inspectorate for Immigration's territorial centres are asylum seekers and persons with a form
of international protection in Romania, who have no sufficient revenues to rent a house in the city.
The accommodation and procedural centres for asylum seekers are open centres, administered by IGI
staff, which serve several allocated counties. They are located in six cities: Bucharest, Galaţi, Timişoara,
Rădăuţi, Şomcuta Mare and Giurgiu. As mentioned before, the centres are also used for the
accommodation of persons with a form of international protection (vulnerable cases, defined as per
the law).
68
Unaccompanied minors may also benefit from accommodation in the reception centres for minors,
administered by the general departments for social security and child protection. The information
provided by DGASPC refers only to the measure of foster care for asylum seeking unaccompanied
minors, who are not included in the target group of this report.
According to Ordinance 44/2004 on the social integration of aliens who obtained a form of protection
or a right to stay in Romania, as well as of citizens of the EU member states and the European Economic
Area, aliens who were granted a form of international protection in Romania and have registered in
the governmental integration programme benefit from accommodation in the centres administered
by IGI for the duration of the integration programme (6 months), with a possibility of extension up to
one year. Upon completion of the integration programme these aliens may rent a house on the private
market and IGI may subsidise up to 50% of the rent contract value, for maximum one year. This
provision, which could not be implemented during the last years because of the lack of funds, was
compensated by support programmes for rent payment for limited periods of time, undertaken by
non-governmental organisations (e.g. the Jesuit Refugee Service in Romania– JRS) and funded through
the European Fund for Refugees.
Immigrants' access to social housing
Access to social housing is regulated by the Housing Law 114/1996. The responses received from town
halls and local councils on the access criteria to social housing and the extent to which they exclude
immigrants illustrate a stronger polarization as compared to last year. Thus there are local councils
from cities with a large number of immigrants which included the aliens domiciled in the
administrative-territorial range of that city among the potential beneficiaries of social housing (e.g.
Timişoara and Iaşi city halls) or which, on the contrary, excluded them (e.g. District 6 City Hall in
Bucharest, Constanţa City Hall). The responses of city halls and local councils indicated that no
immigrant applied for social housing in 2014. Most local councils adopted decisions that define the
specific eligibility criteria and the priorities for obtaining social housing, based on the provisions of Law
114/1996. Neither NGOs nor members of migrant organisations know any cases of immigrants who
applied for social housing.
Beyond the shortage of state-owned housing in relation with the high number of applications (which
is an obstacle in itself), we believe the restrictions imposed by many local councils (through decisions
which establish the exclusive eligibility of Romanian citizens for social housing) indicate there is no
concern at local level for immigrants' access to state housing.
69
Access to housing on the private market
The interviews with immigrant organisations and non-governmental organisations indicated that most
immigrants benefited from support from informal networks for renting houses. Most aliens live in
rented houses, only a very small percentage of them own a house.
On the free market of housing, persons with a form of international protection face the same problems
encountered by the other immigrant categories. The difficulties mentioned by the NGO
representatives we talked to, regarding immigrants' access to house renting on the private market,
have not changed since last year: owners avoid concluding contracts or registering them at the tax
authority; the values recorded in rent contracts are much lower than the amounts actually paid, in
order to pay a lower tax to the state; advance payment of the rent for two months, requested as
guarantee by owners. We also discussed with three real estate agents, in order to know the point of
view of intermediaries: they believe that owners' preferences are not necessarily related to the
potential tenants being foreigners, but rather to the subjective impression left by that person, who
gives confidence to the house owner or not. Beyond the first impression, the lack of regulation on the
private house market and the low state control upon real estate businesses remain an issue and leave
room for abuse from both sides.
Accommodation solutions for immigrants in vulnerable situations
As mentioned before, IGI tried, through projects funded from the European Fund for Integrating Third
Country Nationals and from the European Fund for Refugees, to compensate the lack of funds for rent
subsidies to persons with a form of international protection in Romania and thus to mitigate the risks
to which immigrants with no access to social housing are exposed. Funding from the European Fund
for the Integration of Third Country Nationals and from the European Fund for Refugees covered the
rent expenses for vulnerable cases, but cases of homeless persons or persons who are not able to bring
evidence of a rent contract cannot benefit from this aid. In addition the interruptions between annual
project cycles result in interruptions of payments to beneficiaries, which again exposes immigrants to
the risk of becoming homeless. The local authorities' shelters, a solution to which authorities resorted
in extreme cases, are only available in Bucharest. In addition immigrants facing the lack of means of
subsistence and/or rent often resort to community support (mainly religious institutions). Some of the
Syrians who came in 2014 also resorted to community organisations (e.g. The Humanitarian Support
70
Office of Free Syria organisation which provides material support and rent payment for a limited
number of cases in difficult situations (mainly women with children).
As shown last year as well, the cooperation framework between IGI and the non-governmental
organisations consists of European funding through the EFI and EFR, administered by IGI. The support
given by the NGOs who benefit from European funds for immigrants and refugees is evaluated by IGI
based on project indicators (number of cases supported for rent payment); however the impact of the
support granted through the PG SOLID programme upon the groups of beneficiaries receiving housing
support is not assessed. We hope this will be achieved soon, given the unification of EFI and EFR as of
this year (2014-2020) in the Fund for Asylum, migration and integration (AMIF). Cooperation at the
level of non-governmental organisations is usually within projects, through formal partnerships, for
the same types of services provided in different areas or for complementary services, or outside
projects, informally, by referring individual cases.
Unrestricted access to social security for immigrants in vulnerable situations
In the report From Austerity to Growth – What Progress? published by the European Anti Poverty
Network (EAPN) in 2014 17 , which analyses the content of National Reform Programmes from the
perspective of the European Commission’s recommendations, Romania occupies an unenviable top
position in the list of poverty mitigation concerns. Thus the rate of people at risk of poverty in Romania
reached 23% (the highest in the European Union), as compared to the EU average of 17%. In addition
another indicator for measuring poverty - severe material deprivation - which refers to access to a
basic living standard, reaches 30% in Romania, as compared to a 10% average among member states.
The groups most exposed to poverty are mono-parental families, large families, young people, children
and the unemployed.
EAPN notes that in many national reform programmes, including that of Romania, migrants and ethnic
minorities, which represent two other categories exposed to social exclusion, are not even mentioned.
Emergency Ordinance 194/2002 on the regime of aliens in Romania, consolidated, provides that aliens
with a residence or domicile in Romania benefit from social security from the state, in the same
conditions as Romanian citizens. In fact, from the immigrant categories with legal stay, those who have
access to the social benefit system (with the exception of the state allowance for children) are actually
the aliens who came for family reunification and persons who obtained a form of international
protection in Romania. The other categories, students and immigrants who came for work, are not
17
www.eapn.eu
71
eligible because of the requirement to bring evidence of the means of living (students) and the risk of
losing the right to stay (aliens who came for work).
The information received from the general departments for social security and child protection
(DGASPC), from the National Agency for payments and Social Inspection (ANPIS) and from the Ministry
of Labour (MMFPSPV), most cases addressed by the authorities were unaccompanied minors - asylum
seekers and persons who obtained a form of international protection. In their response provided for
the current research ANPIS stated they do not keep a separate evidence of EU/EEA citizens and
immigrants who receive various social and family benefits. According to data from the Agency, at the
end of 2013 the total number of foreign citizens who received at least one form of payment was 3,204,
which represented 0.1% of the total beneficiaries of social benefits. However the number of foreigners
per type of social benefit was not provided, although the responsible institutions register the
beneficiaries' CNP (personal identification number), which would make it easy to find them in the
system.
Unaccompanied minors
The general directorates for social security and child protection were actively involved in providing
social security services for asylum seeking unaccompanied minors. Although asylum seekers are not
within the scope of our research, it should be mentioned that DGASPC's role was to establish
emergency or family placement measures, to appoint a legal representative, to provide counselling
and guidance.
The state allowance for children
According to MMSPFPV data 18 the number of state allowances for children and the number of
parenting allowances granted in the reference period (January - September 2014) reduced in
comparison with the same period of 2013. In the opinion of the ministry experts, this is the result of a
drop in the birth rate. From the total resources spent by MMFPSPV between January - September
2014, 2,013,052,374 lei (33.8%) were amounts granted as state allowances for children. We do not
know the distribution according to citizenship. Several territorial centres subordinated to IGI reported
they assisted immigrants and persons with a form of international protection to obtain the state
18
Statistic report on the activity of MMFPSPV in the field of social security between 1 January – 30 September
2014.
72
allowance for children. Non-governmental organisations also believe that in general the access of
immigrants' children to the state allowance for children raises no problems.
Non-reimbursable aid for the persons with a form of international protection
MMFPSPV's report for the period January - September 2014 shows that the amounts spent for the
non-reimbursable aid (granted for nine months, with the possibility to extend it for other three
months) paid to aliens who obtained a form of international protection amounted to 1,362,420 lei,
corresponding to 278 persons (most of them from Bucharest, Ilfov and Timiş). The value of this aid is
540 lei/month/person. This amount represents only 0.02% of the social security benefit expenses for
the period January – September 2014.
Social aid
The social aid (Law 416/2001 on the minimum guaranteed revenue) is a form of combating poverty
and redistributing revenues to the most vulnerable categories of population. This is the difference
between the minimum revenue guaranteed by the state and the revenue of the applicant or their
family and is calculated as a percentage of the reference social index. In January 2014 this was raised
by 4.5% (about 142 lei/single person), after it had been raised by 8.5% in June 2013. It should be noted
that, in order to benefit from social aid, a person or a family should bring evidence of their domicile,
so this form of social security is not targeted to homeless people. In other words, far from acting to
support those in need, the restrictive legislation generates or deepens poverty and encourages "black
market" labour.
According to the same statistic report of MMFPSPV cited above, the number of social aid beneficiaries
increased as compared to the same period of 2013, which suggests either a better information of
people about the categories of social benefits available or, most probably, an intensification of poverty.
Thus between January - September 2014 the amount of 496,500,877 lei was paid as social aid,
corresponding to 240,194 cases, 11.2% more than in the same period of the previous year. The
explanation provided by MMFPSPV for the increased number of beneficiaries was the increase of the
amounts granted in two stages. Similarly to the state allowances for children, the number of foreign
beneficiaries of this form of financial aid, let alone of immigrants, is not known. We estimate though
that the number is extremely low, considering that practically only aliens with family reunification visas
and the persons with a form of international protection may benefit from social services without this
jeopardizing their right to stay.
73
According to the responses from the central institutions that were sent requests for information on
the number of immigrants who benefit of social services, most of the general departments for social
security answered they had no immigrant beneficiaries in 2014. An exception was DGASPC District 3 we cite from their response: "we do not provide social services/ benefits to this category”. We consider
the response of DGASPC District 3 is worrisome because it reflects at least lack of legislative knowledge
on behalf of the staff who wrote the response and the management, if not even a discriminatory
attitude of the institution.
We also tried to find the current stage of data collection about immigrants in the local social security
institutions, in order to assess the possibility of implementing an integration monitoring system in
Romania based on some similar indicators to those already reported by some member states in the
field of social services and benefits. Thus one of the questions addressed to the general social security
departments was related to the information they collect about the immigrants they support. Most
answers were "we do not collect any data about immigrants”, with some exceptions related to minors;
for instance DGASPC Constanţa, which centralises marital status data and data on the protection
measures adopted, and DGASPC District 2, which centralises data according to the monitoring system
Child Tracking and Monitoring Information System. General data which would make it possible at least
to determine the number of immigrant beneficiaries of social services or benefits, if not comparisons
between the national and the immigrant population, are not collected at local level "because they
could be considered discriminatory and they are not requested by legislation in force”19.
As regards the inter-institutional collaboration for granting social services and benefits to immigrants
(including persons with a form of international protection), out of the institutions questioned only the
IGI territorial centres mentioned consistently their collaboration with state institutions (county
agencies for social payments and inspection; local/ county employment agencies; general departments
for social security and child protection; county health insurance houses; school inspectorates etc.), as
well as with NGOs. The following non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations were
mentioned, which provide social services to immigrants and to persons who obtained international
protection in the territorial scope of the centres: ARCA, UNHCR, JRS, CNRR, ICAR, IOM etc.
Monitoring access to social security is done by IGI for projects with European funding and by DGASPC
for the services provided to unaccompanied minors, by case management and feedback from
professionals involved in social work, even if they do not have the necessary competence and
experience to work with such cases.
19
Response from DGASPC District 2
74
Unrestricted access of immigrants to health care and social insurance
The reason why we covered health and social security together is that both systems are based on the
insured persons' contribution. The difference would be that social security is one of the methods to
redistribute revenues to population at risk of poverty.
Medical services and health insurance
According to the Eurobarometer20 published in June 2014, 73% of Romanians considered the quality
of medical services to be "poor", as compared to the EU average of 27% dissatisfied citizens. This is not
surprising, considering that Romania allocates for health the lowest GDP share of all member states
(5.6%)21. In addition the number of physicians per 1,000 inhabitants is among the lowest in the EU
(2.5), while the funding per capita was the lowest in the EU (753 Euro)22 in 2012. Limited access to
medical services in rural areas, the population's lack of information, the quality of services and the
focus on treatment instead of prevention (in 2014 the hospital treatment services had a significant
share in the medical system) led to the highest mortality rate in the EU. No study has been performed
on the immigrants' satisfaction about the health care services in Romania, but their opinion would be
interesting considering that their access to the medical system continues to be restricted by legal,
institutional, procedural, cultural obstacles. The health insurance system circulates about 70% of the
expenses for medical services in Romania. According to CNAS (2013) almost 90% of the resident
population is insured, of which 36% employed and 22% children (insured without paying the
contribution).
The medical services provided to a legally staying immigrant depend on their status of insured person
in the health insurance system. The legal basis is Law 95/2006 on the health system reform,
consolidated. With the exception of persons who become insured by paying the contribution
(regardless of the source from which the contribution is paid), such as employees, retired persons,
beneficiaries of the unemployment allowance etc., there is also the category of persons supported by
20
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_fact_ro_en.pdf
OECD (2014), Health at a Glance: Europe 2014, OECD Publishing,
http://ec.europa.eu/health/reports/docs/health_glance_2014_en.pdf
22
Idem 20
21
75
an insured person, or the co-insured. In case the person in need of medical services has no revenues
but does not meet the conditions for receiving the social aid, the law does not exempt them from
paying the contribution. Moreover, persons who are not insured have to make this payment
retroactively (for the last five years), at the level of the minimum gross salary per country (975 lei for
January - June 2015 and 1,050 lei starting July 2015). In this case the amount rises to more than 3,000
lei, including penalties.
According to the National Health Insurance House, the following categories of insured persons were
registered on the lists of family doctors: 84 aliens with a form of international protection and 1,995
persons from the EU/EEA/Swiss Community region. Insured persons are identified by the CNP/ ID card,
not by citizenship. The other insurance houses who responded to our request for information
(Constanţa, Bucharest, Timişoara) do not provide data divided by citizenship or the status of insured
persons.
Emergency medical aid is provided free of charge, regardless of the patient's status of insured person,
until the cessation of the medical emergency condition. According to the report of the Alliance for
Health Romania (Alianţa pentru Sănătate România)23, in 2014 the emergency hospital admissions still
represented 50% of the number of admissions. Although the sanitary reform aims to increase the share
of primary medicine and prevention, hospital services continue to have the highest share. No cases of
medical emergency refusal were notified.
Surprisingly, one of the non-governmental organisations indicated cases when migrant children who,
according to the law, are insured without payment of the contribution, had difficulties in registering
on the lists of a family doctor because none of the parents was insured. The cases were solved
individually.
Some of the non-governmental organisations which provide services to immigrants had funds available
for health insurance payments for vulnerable cases, from European funding for integration and
refugees, but they could not pay the health insurance contribution retroactively. This proved to be a
problem in many cases because of the lack of revenues and in several cases the preferred option was
to pay the services/ intervention/ medicines individually. ICAR Foundation is a singular case among
medical service providers: they support immigrants by their own medical cabinets, specialised family
medicine, cardiology, psychiatry, kinesiotherapy, stomatology. According to a representative of the
foundation, stomatology services are the most demanded. The current funding of ICAR services is
23
Starea de fapt în asigurările de sănătate (Current situation of health insurance), Alianța pentru Sănătate
România, 2014: www.aliantapentrusanatate.ro/wp-content/uploads/RAPORTUL-APSR-sistemul-de-asiguraride-sanatate-din-romania-2014.pdf
76
independent from European funds. Anyway, in order to avoid bureaucracy and complications related
to referring a case in the public health system, NGOs refer the medical cases which they are not able
to support financially to ICAR Foundation.
None of the insurance houses to which information requests were sent mention the collaboration with
IGI or non-governmental organisations regarding the medical services for immigrants/ health
insurance. Some of IGI's territorial centres mentioned their collaboration with the county insurance
houses for the health insurance payment, but the contributions are now collected through the
territorial structures of ANAF. Therefore collaboration among public institutions is almost inexistent.
In Bucharest the non-governmental organisations which provide support to vulnerable cases (ARCA,
ADO SAHROM, APEL etc.) work with ICAR, who provides medical services in their own network. Only
ICAR Foundation monitors the medical services provided to patients, through periodical medical
checks performed by the foundation's doctors.
Social insurance
The relevant social insurance benefits for immigrants are pensions and the unemployment allowance.
Pensions
The law regulating pensions is Law 19/2000 on the public pension system and other social insurance
rights. According to this law, insured persons may be aliens and stateless persons with their domicile
or residence in Romania. The pension involves a minimum contribution stage of almost 15 years.
The contribution stage includes contribution payments in the public system in Romania and other
countries if there are bilateral agreements in place. The bilateral agreements in force in the area of
social security were concluded with: Canada, Korea, Macedonia, Moldova, Turkey, Armenia, the
Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus.
Between 1 January and 16 December 2014 the Bucharest Municipality Pension House registered 154
pension applications based on the social security agreements concluded between Romania and other
states. At the end of 2014, according to data supplied by the National House for Public Pensions (CNPP)
and MMFPSPV (Ministry of Labour and Social Protection), 400 third country nationals benefited from
pensions, as follows:
77
Table 27. Pensions granted by the Romanian state to third country nationals (2014)
Type of benefit
Retirement pension
Early retirement pension
Partial early retirement pension
Invalidity pension
Survivor's pension
Early retirement pension and allowance awarded based on a
special law
Allowance awarded based on special laws
Total
Number of third
country nationals
269
5
55
35
5
1
30
400
Obtaining pensions is a long term process for third country nationals, given the difficulties to identify
the contribution stage in Romania, more exactly because of the economic instability and the
disappearance of firms/ companies/ institutions. Five of the six pension houses to which information
requests were sent have answered (Bucharest, Timiş, Iaşi, Cluj and Constanţa). Of these, Timişoara had
one pension application in 2014, Cluj holds no evidence of third country nationals, Iaşi had no cases,
Bucharest provided only a general evidence which includes Romanian citizens. CNPP gave the most
complete and credible response.
No cases were mentioned of pension houses which collaborated with other institutions with respect
to immigrants. The relation with other legal entities is part of the attempt to recompose the applicant's
contribution stage.
CNPP monitors all categories of social insurance financial rights, but does not monitor their impact
upon the population's living standard.
Unemployment and active employment measures
According to the response provided by MMFPSPV to the request for information on immigrants' access
to unemployment insurance and to the services provided by employment agencies, "aliens holding a
long term right to stay (...) benefit, as per the law, from equal treatment with Romanian citizens,
including with respect to access to the labour market and the services provided by employment
agencies. The provisions regarding the services performed by employment agencies do not apply to
aliens who hold a temporary right to stay for work purposes obtained on the basis of the employment
permit for seasonal workers or a temporary right to stay for secondment purposes.” The legal basis is
Article 80 of OUG 194/2002. The persons with a form of international protection have access to
unemployment insurance and unemployment prevention measures in the same conditions as
Romanian citizens (OG 44/2004).
78
According to data from the Labour Inspectorate, included in the response from the MMFPSPV, the
number of active individual labour contracts concluded by foreign citizens on Romania's territory,
registered in the General Employee Evidence Ledger at the end of December 2014, was 21,857.
According to Article 56 of OUG 194/2002, paragraph (8), amended by OG 25/2014, "The temporary
right to stay is extended without submitting the individual labour contract and an evidence of the salary
(…) for the entire period during which the alien benefits from the unemployment allowance (…)”. The
single permit, introduced by OG 25/2014, certifies the alien's right to stay and to work on Romania's
territory.
The data received from ANOFM through MMFPSPV are partial data referring to the first semester of
2014, as compared to the data communicated directly by ANOFM as per Law 544/2001.
The first source mentions under the categories of aliens about which ANOFM may provide information:
"foreign citizens who acquire a form of protection on Romania's territory or who have a right to stay in
Romania, for work purposes, and who approach the territorial employment agencies”.
According to MMFPSPV, between 1 January and 30 June 2014 a number of 17 aliens were registered
in ANOFM's evidence, of which 16 from third countries (8 persons with a form of international
protection) and one EU citizen. In addition 16 persons with a form of protection in Romania benefited
from employment programmes in the same period, with one of them participating in vocational
courses. The main countries of origin of the immigrants were Syria, Turkey, Mexico, Iraq, Ecuador and
the Republic of Moldova. We were not given any details on the services from which foreign citizens
benefited, but we can assume that some of them (the eight persons with a form of international
protection registered in ANOFM's evidence in the first semester of 2014) approached the Agency to
be formally registered, as a requirement (and condition) for obtaining the non-reimbursable aid.
According to data from ANOFM, 101 immigrants24 were registered in the Agency's evidence in 2014,
who benefited from several services shown in detail in the table below. Following the services provided
by the local agencies, 36 third country nationals were employed.
Table 28. Number of immigrants who benefited from various types of services in Romania (2014)
Service name
Mediation
Information and counselling
Professional training
Mediation, information and counselling
Number of immigrant beneficiaries
18
27
2
52
24
The number of aliens reported by ANOFM (101) does not correspond to the sum per types of services (99
persons).
79
Total
99
The main countries of origin and type of stay of these persons are not specified. Based on the data
available for the first semester of 2014, we can state that some of them are aliens with a form of
protection in Romania. It would also be interesting to find the fields in which the 36 aliens were
employed and their positions and why only two persons attended vocational training courses (they
have not requested this, they were not able to prove their studies, diplomas, they did not speak
Romanian well enough etc.?).
The unemployment allowance is granted as per Law 76/2002 on the unemployment insurance system
and for stimulating employment, and it requires a minimum contribution stage of 12 months during
the previous 24 months before the application. ANOFM has not reported any unemployment aid
beneficiaries among immigrants in 2014. The absence of immigrants among unemployment aid
beneficiaries is also worth while exploring, considering that persons who receive this benefit have their
right to stay extended for the duration of the benefit. The reasons could be diverse: the immigrants'
lack of information, the lack of the minimum contribution stage, a difficult procedure in relation with
the benefits, discrimination etc.
Cooperation with other institutions
ANOFM and its territorial structures cooperate with IGI and its subordinated territorial services in the
field of migration.
Measuring progress: comparison with the 2014 edition of IIB
Table 29. Welfare: final evaluation
Indicators
Final evaluation
8.1. Unrestricted
Evaluation: PARTLY
access to housing/
accommodation for The housing area is a sensitive one for the overall population and all the
immigrants in need. more for vulnerable categories, such as immigrants. The situation is similar
to last year: a) access to social housing is almost inexistent for immigrants,
but not all local councils have imposed restrictive criteria; in this case the
main issue remains the extremely low number of social houses
administered by the local authorities, as compared to the needs of the
population who have no home and no possibility to purchase one; b) on the
private home rental market success depends on everyone's abilities;
however many immigrants, particularly the more vulnerable ones, do not
have the necessary amounts of money to rent a house, and the support
received from NGOs or migrant communities is limited to a few months; c)
the persons with a form of international protection, vulnerable cases
according to the law (OG 44/2004), are accommodated, upon request, in
the centres administered by IGI; although this is meant to be a temporary
80
Indicators
Final evaluation
solution, there are persons who have been living for about 10 years in these
conditions; d) immigrants left without a home cannot be supported from
European funds, because they are not able to supply a rent contract; in
their case the emergency solution are the shelters administered by local
authorities/ NGOs. Nevertheless we cannot conclude that there are
widespread institutional obstacles / discriminatory practices regarding
immigrants' access to housing. We believe the indicator is partly achieved:
there are restrictions regarding access to social housing imposed by the
local councils, but not all have proceeded so; on the other hand the private
market situation does not indicate any unwillingness of landlords to rent to
immigrants in general, but rather perhaps to persons from certain groups
(however at this moment we do not have sufficient data to analyse
landlords' preferences); as regards persons with a form of international
protection, the possibility they have to be accommodated in the IGI centres
offers them an advantage as compared to other immigrant categories.
8.2. Unrestricted
access to social
security for
immigrants in
vulnerable
situations
8.3. Unrestricted
access of
immigrants to
There are no significant changes as compared to 2014.
Evaluation: YES
Statistical data are far from offering a real picture on the number of
immigrants who benefit from social security services and benefits. The only
exception is the non-reimbursable aid for persons with a form of
international protection in Romania, for which the number of beneficiaries
is reported. The services and benefits most often accessed by immigrants
are those for minors: placement and lodging in the DGASPC centres for
unaccompanied minors in the asylum system and the state allowances for
children. As NGOs and, traditionally, religious communities have an active
role of providers of social services and/or financial aid (or in-kind support),
immigrants in need address them first and only afterwards do they resort to
local authorities. Immigrants who came for work purposes and who lose
their job during the validity of the single permit are subject to certain legal
restrictions (Article 56 of OUG 194/2002, amended by OG 25/2014), to the
effect that they may stay on Romania's territory as long as they benefit
from the unemployment allowance. It is out of the question for them to
apply for other social benefits, considering that if they no longer receive the
unemployment aid, they may continue to stay in Romania for only 60 days
after the termination of their labour relation. As regards immigrants' access
to social services for combating poverty (for instance the social aid), we
have no sufficient information neither from the social security department,
nor from NGOs to be able to formulate a well grounded opinion. As we
have not been informed of any cases of immigrants being refused social
services, we inferred that, at the time of the analysis, access to social
security does not raise any practical problems.
There are no significant changes as compared to the situation in 2014.
Evaluation: YES
For this indicator the main difficulties relate to the health insurance
payments, which provide access to all insured persons to a poorly operating
81
Indicators
Final evaluation
health care and
medical system. In the case of persons who have to pay the contribution
social insurance
retroactively, this amounts to more than 3,000 lei. The payment of health
insurance does not influence only the access to medical services in
Romania, but it also conditions the extension of the right to stay. No
difficulties have been mentioned with respect to immigrants' access to
emergency medical services. Similarly to the case of social services, there
are NGOs who either contribute to the payment of health insurance, or
they provide medical services (in this latter case only in Bucharest). Our
analysis of the social insurance for immigrants was focused on pensions and
unemployment. The award of pensions in Romania is regulated mainly by
the bilateral agreements concluded with third countries in this field. The
major difficulties relate to recomposing the contribution stage in Romania,
following the shut-down/ dissolution of many companies. The pension
houses keep evidence of the number of immigrants who receive pensions
and other social insurance rights, unlike other institutions, but these were
the only data sources we had access to. The number of beneficiaries of
active employment measures is very low and no immigrant was reported to
have received the unemployment allowance in 2014.
8.4. Advantageous
cooperation
between the public
and private sectors
for supplying social,
medical and
accommodation
(housing) services
for immigrants.
No significant changes have been noticed as compared to the IIB 2014
edition.
Evaluation: PARTLY
Cooperation with institutions and organisations in the field of migration is
not a practice among public authorities in Romania. There are also
exceptions, but in such cases the previously established relationships
between members and/or the size of that particular local community are
important, as well as the number of potential beneficiary immigrants in the
area. In general the initiative comes from IGI, particularly from the level of
their subordinated structures, for small communities (e.g.: Giurgiu,
Rădăuţi). The social security departments are examples of local authorities
structures which have interacted with institutions and NGOs in the field of
migration, particularly in District 2 of Bucharest and in Timişoara. Although
the number of immigrants is significant in other cities as well (Constanţa,
Timişoara, Cluj, Iaşi), the number of students and immigrant workers in
these urban areas is high, and the services analysed are not targeted to
them but to vulnerable immigrants. In the field of health services and social
security, cooperation between institutions with responsibilities in this field
and those in charge with migration has not been mentioned. Things are
different in the case of NGOs, who know each other and refer cases to one
another, depending on their specificity. Their preference is to refer
immigrants to services in the not-for-profit network, for reasons which are
easy to understand: the additional efforts and resources (time and staff)
allocated for interacting with state institutions and the lower chances of
success. Another aspect noticed was the public institutions' lack of trust in
NGOs, although at least some of them demonstrated they can bring a
valuable contribution and they provide services of remarkable quality.
Given the uneven collaboration between institutions in the various fields of
welfare, the indicator was evaluated as partly achieved.
82
Indicators
Final evaluation
8.5. Periodical
monitoring and
evaluation of the
impact of welfare
programmes,
benefits and
services upon the
target group.
No differences have been registered as compared to the indicator's analysis
in 2014.
Evaluation: NO
No differences have been noticed as compared to 2014 with respect to
service monitoring either. Although the need to evaluate services and
benefits has been consistently invoked for more than three years, this has
not happened yet. The conclusion is that there is actually no concern for
improving the quality of services, but rather only the obsession to appear
well in papers and in the public discourse, in other words to fulfil a
formality. IGI is no exception to this rule, considering that the integration
programme they administer, for persons with a form of international
protection, has not been evaluated since 2011. An important note related
to monitoring is that not even simple indicators, such as the number of
beneficiaries for a certain type of service/ benefit, are collected at local
level for immigrants (with very few exceptions), which makes it practically
impossible at this moment to assess the impact of integration legislation in
Romania.
Conclusions
Immigrants' access to housing is different depending on the category they belong to and the type of
housing envisaged. Social housing is practically inaccessible for immigrants. On the private market
competition is open and the decision rests with the landlord. Vulnerable persons with a form of
international protection benefit from accommodation in the IGI centres for an undetermined time,
which is an advantage for them as compared to other categories of immigrants. NGOs also contribute
with discontinuous services and support for finding housing/ a shelter and paying the rent for
vulnerable persons.
Social security for immigrants focuses on minors. There are two reasons why we state this. Firstly, in
2014 the general departments for social security provided services to asylum seeking unaccompanied
minors or minors who obtained a form of international protection in Romania, for whom they decided
the measure of emergency placement and appointed a legal representative. Secondly, most of the
social benefits granted to immigrants are the state allowances for children, seen as a benefit for the
family rather than a form of social aid. We can assume there are immigrants who received other
categories of social benefits, but these are not covered by official statistics and their number is
probably very low, given the limitations set by the purpose of stay in Romania (students and those who
came for work have practically no access to social benefits) and the low number of immigrants present
on the country's territory. The responses from social security authorities indicate, similarly to last year,
83
that the persons with a form of international protection are the immigrant category most visible at
institutional level.
Access to medical services and social insurance involves payment of some contributions, namely a
minimum contribution stage of the beneficiary. The major difficulty in the case of medical services
remains the payment of health insurance, which is a condition for the extension of the right to stay. In
the case of social insurance, some problems have been noticed with obtaining the pensions, related to
recomposing the contribution stage, as a result of company shut-down; however we have no
information from the competent institutions with respect to unemployment and potential obstacles
related to employment measures.
Recommendations

standardising the indicators collected by public institutions, so as to enable the extraction of
significant information on various specific populations (including immigrants), relevant for
research and public policies;

establishing a monitoring system for the impact of these services and benefits upon the various
categories of population, as compared to their needs;

creating functional long term partnerships, on the one hand between the ministries in charge
with immigrant integration and on the other hand between local public authorities and nongovernmental organisations which provide social, medical and employment services for
immigrants;

preparing and applying a common strategy to inform the public authorities and population at
national and local level (in cities with a significant number of immigrants), to be achieved by
IGI in partnership with non-governmental organisations.
84
9. Labour and economic integration (Victoria Cojocariu and Marana Matei)
Within the current IIB edition we continued to evaluate immigrants' integration on the labour market
in Romania and their economic integration. Based on the results and conclusions of the previous two
IIB editions, we decided to focus on three indicators in this edition.
Table 30. Analysis of the Labour and economic integration dimension
Context
Indicators
Evaluation
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
NO [0]
9.1. Easy
professional
recognition
The professional
documents obtained
in third countries
are recognised and
the procedure is
easy.
The professional
documents
obtained in most
third countries are
recognised and/or
the procedures are
difficult.
9.2. The Blue
Card instrument
exists and is
applied for
highly skilled
immigrants.
The Blue Card
instrument is
implemented at
national level and it
contributes to the
smooth integration
of immigrants in
Romania.
9.3. Immigrants
have free access
to trade unions/
union
organisations.
Immigrants have
unrestricted access
to trade unions and
union organisations.
The Blue Card
instrument is
adopted in the
national legislation,
but there is no
implementation
methodology nor
registered
practices.
Immigrants' access
to trade unions and
union organisations
is restricted.
The professional
documents
obtained in third
countries are not
recognised or
they are
recognised only
for certain
categories of
immigrants and
the procedures
are difficult.
The Blue Card
instrument was
not adopted at
national level.
Sources
and
methods
Previous IIB
editions
Information
requests to
IGI,
MMFPSPV
Immigrants'
Information
access to trade
requests to
unions and union MMFPSPV,
organisations is
trade
extremely
unions
difficult.
Based on the official figures provided by the General Inspectorate for Immigration, the number of third
country nationals present on Romania's territory holding a residence permit for work purposes
remains relatively constant, around 5,200 persons, similarly to previous years. According to data from
the National Agency for Employment, in the first semester of 2014, 512 employers applied for
85
employment permits25 for 897 aliens. At the beginning of 2015, there were 21,857 active individual
labour contracts recorded in the general employee evidence register, concluded by foreign citizens
from third countries on Romania's territory.
In this stage we used the following data collection methods: analysis of the legislation in force on
immigrants' access to the labour market, secondary analysis of the information provided in previous
reports and studies, as well as requests for information through which we asked both for statistical
data and for opinions and examples of practices regarding the situation of immigrants in Romania and
their access to the labour market.
Before commencing the analysis of the three indicators, it should be mentioned that a detailed analysis
of the legal framework for the field of labour and economic integration can be found in Chapter II.2.9
Labour and economic integration of the 2014 edition of the Immigrant Integration Barometer. In this
edition we will look at the only change we have identified: the Emergency Ordinance 25/2014 which
came into force on 28 November 2014. For a detailed analysis of the impact of this ordinance upon the
procedures for obtaining work permits, we recommend Chapter II.2.1, Free movement, of this
publication.
Dimensions and indicators
A change made in this edition refers to the analysis, from the point of view of access to the labour
market, of an indicator included in the Affirmative measures dimension in the previous edition – the
existence and implementation of the Blue Card instrument. We made this change because we realised,
following last year's analysis, that the Blue Card instrument is more of a method to access the labour
market for a specific category of immigrants, rather than an affirmative measure. This was also
confirmed by the immigrants with whom we discussed while working on the previous editions, as well
as by integration practicians.
Another new indicator introduced this year in the measurement grid for immigrants' access to the
labour market is the access to the trade union organisations in our country. This indicator comes, to
some extent, to continue the analysis of the indicator in the 2014 edition of the IIB dedicated to
employers' practices. We decided to look at immigrants' rights regarding access to trade union
organisations and to the rights derived from this capacity. We deemed this analysis to be necessary
25
The county/ local employment agencies issue to the employers who intend to employ aliens permits which
indicate that the positions declared by the employers cannot be occupied by unemployed people from Romania
or from the European Economic Area.
86
based on the conclusions of the previous IIB editions, which underlined that immigrants are one of the
most vulnerable categories with respect to employers' abuses.
We have chosen not to continue the analysis of immigrants' access to financial instruments (credits),
presented in the previous edition, as no change has occurred in the legislative framework regulating
this field. In addition the discussions we had with representatives of non-governmental organisations
in the field of integration which provide counselling to immigrants indicated that the banks' practices
have not changed, they continue to be applied differently depending on the specificity of each request
from an immigrant.
Another indicator which is no longer included in this edition's analysis is the recognition of immigrants'
right to own buildings and land in Romania. In this case we have also kept the analysis and conclusions
formulated in the previous edition because no changes have occurred in the regulation of this right for
immigrants.
We will analyse each of the three indicators below.
Easy professional recognition
Table 31. Labour and economic integration: evaluation of the Easy Professional Recognition indicator
Indicator
9.1. Easy professional
recognition
Hypotheses
Yes
Partly
No
The professional
documents obtained
in third countries are
recognised and the
procedure is easy.
The professional
documents obtained
in most third
countries are
recognised and/or
the procedures are
difficult.
The professional
documents obtained in
third countries are not
recognised or they are
recognised only for
certain categories of
immigrants and the
procedures are
difficult.
The recognition procedure for aliens’ qualifications is required in order to enable them to exert the
right to practice a certain profession in Romania, granted to them in a third country (outside the EU).
The process involves an assessment of the alien’s qualification level certified by the diploma and of
his/her professional experience.
As regards the qualification recognition procedure, two situations have been identified which block
the recognition process. Firstly, there is no solution for the persons who hold no evidence documents,
although they have graduated the study years and hold the necessary skills for exerting their
profession, as the methodology according to Article 11(1) of Governmental Ordinance 44/2004 has not
87
been prepared yet. Secondly, if they hold evidence documents, the non-formal evaluation of
competences is only possible for 103 professions for which accredited evaluation centres exist.
The issue of recognizing study documents or professional qualifications obtained by immigrants in the
country of origin is addressed in the National Strategy on Immigration for 2015-2018, currently in the
public debate stage. Objective 1.2 and indirectly objective 1.1 restate the improvement of the
recognition process, considering the real need to attract foreigners to cover the labour market deficit
in some areas. It is encouraging that the recognition procedure is a priority, because at present the
recognition and equivalence mechanisms need improvements (this issue is described in detail in IIB
2014). A concrete case of a right not being granted is the case of third country national immigrants
who undertook a study programme mentioned above.
Table 32. Labour and economic integration: final evaluation of the Easy Professional Recognition indicator
Indicator
Final evaluation
9.1. Easy
professional
recognition
Evaluation: NO
The professional documents obtained in third countries are not recognised
or they are recognised only for certain categories of immigrants and the
procedures are difficult.
Foreigners who lack evidence documents for their studies cannot benefit
from the formal recognition of their skills or from the non-formal
recognition, as the methodology according to Article 11(1) of Governmental
Ordinance 44/2004 has not been prepared yet.
The National Strategy for Immigration for 2015 – 2018 addresses the issue of
recognising qualifications as a lever for attracting resource-persons for
occupying the labour market sectors which currently face a deficit.
Applying the Blue Card instrument
Table 33. Labour and economic integration: evaluation of the indicator: Applying the Blue Card instrument
Indicator
9.2. The Blue Card
instrument exists and
is applied for highly
skilled immigrants.
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
The Blue Card
The Blue Card
instrument is
instrument is adopted
implemented at
in the national
national level and it
legislation, but there is
contributes to the
no implementation
smooth integration of
methodology or
immigrants in Romania. registered practices.
NO [0]
The Blue Card
instrument was not
adopted at national
level.
88
As mentioned above, in this edition we analyse the Blue Card instrument as a method to access the
labour market for a specific category of immigrants. We thus aim to take further the analysis started
last year and to find whether the procedure for obtaining the Card is implemented in our country. By
analysing the specific legislation we found that Directive 50/2009 was transposed into Romanian
legislation by Law 157/2011, and the information obtained from IGI indicated that this EU Blue Card is
the identity document issued by the General Inspectorate for Immigration which certifies the alien's
right to stay and to work in Romania in his/her capacity of highly skilled worker. However the
procedure for obtaining the Blue Card is subject to the general framework for acquiring the right to
stay in Romania, namely obtaining a specific permit. In other words, the same type of procedure
applies as for any other permit. In this line we analysed the available information on the internet page
of the General Inspectorate for Immigration to see how easy it is for a highly skilled worker to complete
their documents. We thus found that highly skilled workers are employed based on a specific work
permit which the employer has to obtain after submitting a set of 14 documents26 and paying a 5 lei
charge. The information is available in English and Romanian but the term Blue Card is not used in the
available documents in any of the languages; so for an immigrant who is less informed about the
specific terminology it is more difficult to access these data.
From the information received from the General Inspectorate for Immigration we found that at the
end of 2014 the number of highly skilled workers in Romania holding a Blue Card was 324, and their
main countries of origin were: the Russian Federation (32), USA (29), Turkey (26), India (23) and
Pakistan (22).
In order to complete the picture of highly skilled immigrants' access to Romania we requested an
opinion from the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Security and the Elderly regarding the Blue Card
use in Romania. They informed us that the full responsibility for its management and implementation
lies with the General Inspectorate for Immigration; the ministry is only involved, through ANOFM, in
the process of setting the annual quotas for work permits for third country nationals. We believe this
is a matter of concern considering that Romania faces a shortage of highly skilled staff in a few areas
of crucial importance. In this context we have to overemphasise an aspect we have also highlighted in
previous editions: the lack of an inter-institutional collaboration between public authorities is one of
the main obstacles for a proper management of immigrant integration in Romania.
26
The list is available at the following address.
http://igi.mai.gov.ro/api/media/userfiles/opis%20documente%20autorizatii%20de%20munca%20lucrator%20i
nalt%20calificat.pdf
89
Considering the above, we believe we can evaluate the indicator The Blue Card instrument for highly
skilled workers exists and is applied with the first hypothesis: the Blue Card instrument is implemented
at national level and contributes to the harmonious integration of immigrants in Romania.
Nevertheless we assume the fact that at this moment integration cannot be defined as harmonious,
but the mechanisms for this type of integration are available and functional, at least from a technical
and procedural point of view.
Table 34. Labour and economic integration: final evaluation of the indicator: Applying the Blue Card instrument
Indicator
9.2. The Blue Card
instrument exists and is
applied for highly skilled
immigrants.
Evaluation
YES [2]
The Blue Card instrument is implemented at national level and it
contributes to the smooth integration of immigrants in Romania.
Immigrants have free access to trade unions/ union organisations.
Table 35. Labour and economic integration: evaluation of the indicator: Immigrants' access to trade unions/
union organisations is free
Indicator
9.3. Immigrants'
access to trade
unions/ union
organisations is free.
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
NO [0]
Immigrants have
unrestricted access to
trade unions and
union organisations.
Immigrants' access to
trade unions and union
organisations is
extremely difficult.
Immigrants' access
to trade unions and
union organisations
is restricted.
Another newly introduced indicator this year is that of immigrants' access to trade unions and union
organisations. The reason for introducing this indicator is one of the conclusions of the previous
editions of the Immigrant Integration Barometer, which underlined that immigrants are one of the
most vulnerable categories with respect to labour market abuses. Thus we aimed to analyse the
organisations created with the aim of protecting and promoting the rights of employees', including
foreign ones.
Thus in a first stage we analysed the relevant legislation: Romania's Constitution (Articles 9 and 37
regarding the establishment and operation of trade unions), Law 54/2003 (on the legal framework for
all trade union activities, from establishment to dissolution), the Labour Code (Law 53/2003), Law 168
/1999 on the resolution of collective labour conflicts and Law 130/1996 republished in 1998 on the
collective labour contract. According to legal provisions, access to trade unions is unrestricted for
foreign citizens, including for third country nationals (from outside the European Union).
90
In order to check compliance with these provisions we contacted the six trade union organisations in
Romania to find what is the affiliation procedure for an immigrant and what is the number of foreign
citizens from third countries (outside the EU) who are members of those trade union organisations.
The responses are given in the table below.
Table 36. The procedure for an immigrant's affiliation to trade union organisations in Romania
Trade union organisation
Immigrants'
access is ...
Activity
fields
Countries of
origin
Unrestricted
The number of
members
originating from
third countries
About 20
The Confederation of
Democratic Trade Unions
in Romania (Confederaţia
Sindicatelor Democratice
din România)
National Confederation of
Free Trade Unions in
Romania - "Frăţia"
(Confederaţia Naţională a
Sindicatelor Libere din
România – Frăţia)
The National Trade Union
Block (Blocul Naţional
Sindical)
Confederation Cartel Alfa
(Confederaţia Naţională
Sindicală Cartel Alfa)
Sport
activities
(football)
Unavailable
Unrestricted
No data held
-
-
Have not
responded to
the request
Unrestricted
-
-
-
11,72227
Republic of
Moldova,
Turkey,
China
Have not
responded to
the request
-
Light
industry,
Civil
Constructio
ns
-
Confederation Meridian
(Confederaţia Sindicală
Naţională Meridian)
The Confederation of
Democratic Trade Unions
in Romania (Confederaţia
Sindicatelor Democratice
din România)
Have not
responded to
the request
-
-
-
-
The first aspect we should emphasise with respect to immigrants' access to trade unions is the poor
management of data on foreign citizens. Nevertheless, one of the three organisations who responded
to our requests includes an important number of members from third countries.
As regards using the trade union membership to solve potential problems, we did not manage to find
information because citizenship is not registered within the data collection on the members who
27
Data available for the end of 2013.
91
request the trade union's support. In our future efforts to research this integration aspect we aim to
analyse the status of trade union member from the point of view of the employed immigrant.
To conclude, we can say that the number of more than 10,000 third country nationals who became
trade union members in their activity fields allows us to evaluate positively the hypothesis we departed
from and to consider that immigrants' access to trade unions is unrestricted both from a legal and from
a practical point of view.
Table 37. Labour and economic integration: final evaluation of the indicator: Immigrants' access to trade
unions/ union organisations is free
Indicator
9.3. Immigrants have free
access to trade unions/ union
organisations.
Evaluation
YES [2]
Immigrants have unrestricted access to trade unions and union
organisations.
92
10. Civil society involvement (Luciana Lăzărescu)
Overview
In the Civil society involvement dimension we analysed three aspects we deemed essential for the
efficient operation of organisations in relation with the missions they undertook: the networks in
which they provide services for immigrants, the good practices they generate and/or promote and
access to funding to enable continued activity.
From a methodological perspective, the data sources for the analysis were: interviews with
representatives of non-governmental and migrant organisations, observation, as well as a review of
published literature on this subject, particularly in Europe.
The Civil society involvement dimension reflects the system of relationships between the state and
migration NGOs, migrants' NGOs, religious communities and the representatives of immigrants, as well
as the resources attracted by the civil society structures in order to resist financially in this sector. Nongovernmental organisations with experience in migrants' assistance are well represented, but this is
not the case with migrants' organisations, who survive with great difficulty in Romania, both because
of internal dissensions and of their inability to raise funds. In general, cooperation which is not based
on formal partnerships is not a strength of organisational practices in the field of migration.
Professionalising the not-for profit structures within immigrant communities and facilitating their
access to public funding should be a priority for the Romanian state, as it would allow migrants to
assume responsibility for their own community and to have their interests represented in relation with
state structures.
Indicator definition and analysis
In this chapter we looked at the civil society involvement in supporting immigrants, including here
migrant organisations, religious organisations and informal groups. We tried then to identify
integration good practices from the civil society, as well as the available funding for non-governmental
organisations. We evaluated the three indicators based on the information collected and we compared
the results with those of the 2014 edition of the IIB to highlight differences, if any.
93
Table 38. Analysis of the Civil Society Involvement dimension
Indicators
10.1. The existence
of private support
networks (including
transnational
networks, migrant
organisations and
informal groups)
10.2. Good practices
of the civil society in
the field of
immigrant
integration
10.3. Access of civil
society organisations
to resources and
funding from various
sources (public,
private and
individual donations)
for programmes
targeting
immigrants.
YES [2]
There are sufficient civil
society structures in the
main cities with a large
number of immigrants,
which support them in
all areas of integration:
labour, education, social
services etc.
A significant number of
good practices of the
civil society are
identified in all areas of
integration, with a
positive impact upon
the target group.
Non-governmental
organisations have
unlimited access to
resources and funding
schemes for immigrants.
PARTLY [1]
The territorial
distribution of civil
society structures
and their fields of
activity cover partly
the number of
immigrants and
their needs.
Positive practices of
the civil society are
isolated, they are
limited to certain
areas of integration
and their impact is
limited.
Access to resources
and funding is
restricted by certain
criteria, other than
the quality of the
funding proposal.
NO [0]
There is too little
support from the civil
society on the specific
areas of integration.
No good practices of the
civil society were
identified.
Non-governmental
organisations’ access to
resources and funding
for programmes
dedicated to immigrants
is extremely difficult.
Information sources and methods used: interviews with non-governmental organisations, migrant
organisations, cultural mediators, observation.
Existence of private support networks
The support given to immigrants in Romania by non-governmental organisations, religious structures
and migrant organisations not only compensates but also replaces and in most cases exceeds the
support they could receive from local authorities. The positive effect is the reduction of bureaucracy
and the shortening of the waiting time between the application and the delivery of support for cases
in need. The negative effect is the local institutions' deresponsibilization and disregard of this category
of population as potential beneficiaries of public services.
For most immigrants NGOs have mainly the role to inform and orient them in the complicated system
of state institutions and in the legislation regulating migration. For those who face poverty or illness
the organisations are firstly providers of social services. For new-comer immigrants and for those who
94
are integrated and want to become Romanian citizens, non-governmental organisations have a
training and knowledge transfer role (language and cultural knowledge or specific knowledge for the
citizenship examination). In Bucharest there are about 10 NGOs whose mission is to support migrants,
who are not migrant organisations. Most of them perform their activities mainly with European
funding: for instance the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), ARCA – The Romanian Forum
for Refugees and Migrants, the Association for the Development of Organisation (ADO SAH ROM), the
Jesuit Service for Refugees Romania (JRS), the Romanian National Council for Refugees (CNRR), the
Ecumenical Association of Churches in Romania (AIDROM) etc. In addition to Bucharest, where most
migrant-supporting NGOs are concentrated, there are 14 other cities with information centres and
services for immigrants 28 (including Braşov, Cluj-Napoca, Constanţa, Galaţi, Iaşi, Sibiu and Timişoara).
At another pole, the cultural one, there are the religious structures - better or more poorly organised,
more universalist or more exclusivist. The best organised and the most visible among immigrants is the
Arab Muslim community, with more than 10 cult centres open in Bucharest. It is strongly connected to
the community members and resources, and for this reason many immigrants resort directly to their
support: “The Imam knows representatives of all practicing Muslim communities. The main driver is
the religious community (…)”29. According to estimates of the Muftiat of the Muslim Cult in Romania,
the Muslim community has now about 70,000 members, most of them concentrated in Dobrogea and
consisting of Turkish and Tartar ethnics. In Bucharest there are about 10,000 Muslims30. However data
from the State Secretariat for Cults indicate that only two mosques are registered in Romania, one in
Bucharest and another one in Constanţa, and 76 "geamii" (smaller mosques) used by the Turkish and
Tartar communities (one in Bucharest, 8 in Tulcea and 67 in Constanţa). Therefore the more than 10
cult centres in Bucharest mentioned above are not registered as such, they operate as cultural
associations or are affiliated to entities with other forms of legal organisations.
For some immigrants involved in guiding new-comers, it all started from the so diverse needs of
foreigners who asked for support from the community through the cult centres: "I am involved a little
in the religious community, as I am a practicing member... most people come with problems, not with
joys (…). That's where the idea came from: if people anyway come with various problems looking for
support, it should be more specific (...) not necessarily a cult centre for a certain confession.”31 There
are more migrant organisations; mainly Arabs, regardless of nationality, have been active (for example
28
The centres were established in 2010 through a project initiated by IOM and funded from the European
Integration Fund.
29
Interview with the representative of a migrant organisation
30
www.muftiyat.ro/comunitatea-musulmana-din-romania/comunitati/bucuresti/
31
95
there are Egyptians' and Syrians' organisations etc.). However divergences of opinions and interests
exist within these organisations. For this reason some of these organisations do not survive.
A very important role in supporting new-comer immigrants lies with the 27 cultural mediators in
Timişoara, Iaşi, Constanţa, Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest, trained through the project Migrant in
Intercultural Romania (coordinated by the Intercultural Institute in Timişoara). Their main role is to
connect immigrants with non-governmental and public institutions in Romania and to provide relevant
and updated information to the members of their own communities on the aspects likely to affect their
life in Romania. The issue of the insufficient information available for migrants was mentioned both by
members of the NGOs active in the field of migration for a longer time, and by representatives of
migrant organisations: "(…) in general they are guided by friends or relatives who are already in
Romania. They are not so well informed yet as to know that there are organisms... associations or
foundations... something to guide them, to help them; so there are some information gaps (…).”32 The
difficulty to reach foreigners' communities was also mentioned: "(…) because some come to the capital,
others get to other cities – Timişoara, Arad...”33. IGI's territorial structures provide no information, they
only "solve files" and applications. A representative of the migrant community suggested that the
problem of foreigners not being informed at the office could be solved by the presence, in turns, of an
NGO representative at the IGI premises, who would provide the necessary information and counselling
to immigrants.
As regards the relationships between the Romanian NGOs who support immigrants and the immigrant
organisations/ community members, it was suggested that the former do not normally resort to
community organisations because "(…) they do not help each other (...). We are in contact with some
foreigners' community organisations, but we cannot rely on them .”34 However there are also persons
who helped other immigrants, but the percentage is low as compared to the available resources in the
community: "(…) there are some very rich people who own hotels, (…) restaurants (…) in Bucharest.”35
On the other hand, migrants' organisations feel marginalised by the large NGOs, who are not interested
to collaborate. "At the beginning indeed we tried to rely on mutual support with other foundations, but
now it's clear to me that this is not the case.”36 In the opinion of some representatives of migrant
organisations, small organisations have chances to work only with other small organisations.
32
Idem
Idem
34
Interview with an NGO employee
35
Idem
36
33
96
Good practices of the civil society in the field of immigrant integration
The positive practices of non-governmental organisations remain difficult to identify. Several projects
were mentioned, such as the network of counselling centres for migrants initiated by IOM and
described in short in the 2014 edition of the IIB, the MyPlace cultural centre of JRS, or particular cases
solved successfully, after an initial period of "fight" with public authorities. From our point of view, a
good practice should bring something new, should be transferable to another area or another context
and should have been subject to some evaluation, that is, it should have had a proven positive impact
upon the target-group.
The multifunctional cultural centre MyPlace37, developed by the Jesuit Refugee Service with funding
from the European Integration Fund, brought together in the same area various migrant communities
and created the conditions for stimulating interaction between them, through a series of cultural,
social and educational events. The project aim was to increase cohesion between immigrant
communities originating from different cultures and to promote intercultural communication. The
novelty brought by MyPlace consists of the organised framework it provides, of the diversity of
activities and the consultation with immigrants with respect to the programme and topics of events.
The project (or sections of it) can be transferred to other organisations. The project has not been
evaluated from the point of view of its impact upon immigrant communities.
Another example mentioned during the local seminar in March 2015, organised by the Association for
the Protection of Rights and Social Integration (ADIS), was the initiative of Serviciul APEL organisation
to promote among students the recent changes in employment legislation (the exemption from
obtaining the employment permit for them, following the entry into force of OG 25/2014) through
information sessions with students in the preparatory year in the Polytechnical, ASE (Economic
Studies) and Medicine universities. APEL’s approach is proactive and new, but it was assessed only
through the direct feedback of participating students.
The project Take Care – Medical Language Guide for Migrants38, developed by a consortium of partners
from 8 countries, including the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Gr.T. Popa" in Iaşi, aimed to
prepare a useful instrument for communication with medical staff and understanding the terminology
for basic illnesses, targeted to migrants, migrant communities and non-governmental organisations
working with migrants. The guideline has been recently published on the internet page of the European
Union dedicated to integration 39 and contains information on the medical system in the country,
37
http://imyplace.ro/
www.takecareproject.eu/about
39
http://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration
38
97
health insurance, family doctors, services for children etc., as well as an interactive section for learning
the language.
Promoting good practice examples related to migration and immigrants' integration, originating from
organisations in Romania, is very important for increasing the visibility of this category of population
for local authorities, employers and society in general.
Access of civil society organisations to resources and funding from various sources
The funding of non-governmental organisations working with migrants is a delicate problem. The
European Refugee Fund and the European Integration Fund for Third Country Nationals were available
until this year, as financial instruments dedicated to asylum and migration, administered by IGI. Since
2015 the two budgets were merged in the Asylum and Migration Fund (AMIF). Unfortunately there
will be a break of several months between the closure of the current financial cycle (30 June 2015) and
the opening of AMIF funding, during which many vulnerable immigrants will be left without support.
Unofficial sources estimate that the new fund will be available starting August 2015, which means that
the winning projects will start at the end of 2015 (November at the earliest) or at the beginning of
2016.
Access to funding is unequal, depending on the size and the type of the applicant organisation, of their
experience and the type of funding for which they apply. Thus the perception of some civil society
representatives is that large organisations, with success in obtaining funding, orient to other large
organisations, ignoring the small organisations' and the migrants organisations' attempts to
collaborate: "Access to funding for small organisations is <<forbidden>> (...)”40. Lacking partnerships,
solid knowledge of how to write projects and an understanding of the specificities of funding, chances
are very low.
On the other hand, as regards access to funds for direct services for immigrants, even experienced
organisations believe that "(…) if we start to apply to all sort of funds together with all organisations
working with vulnerable groups, we have no chance. Those working with children, with Rroma people,
with disabled persons, with the elderly will always have priority... I think immigrants would be the last
on the list.” 41 As mentioned above, the two European funds - for refugees and for integration dedicated to migration represented the major sources of funding for non-governmental organisations
with experience in asylum and migration, so much so that they became dependant on the IGI-
40
41
Interview with an NGO employee
98
administered funds. As some NGO representatives noted, the award of funding for social services
dedicated to immigrants exclusively through IGI limits the independence of NGOs from the state and
affects their capacity and interest to make lobby for the target groups' rights. Although several funding
lines were open in 2014 dedicated to human rights, active citizenship, social inclusion and services for
vulnerable cases (the EEA grants and POSDRU funding, the Lifelong Learning Programme etc.),
relatively few organisations active in the field of migration applied. Among the service providers only
ICAR obtained funding through Norwegian funds (EEA grants) for a resource centre and services for
immigrants.
Measuring progress: comparison with the 2014 edition of IIB
Table 39. Civil society involvement: final evaluation
Indicators
10.1. The existence
of private support
networks (including
migrant
organisations and
informal groups).
10.2. Good practices
of the civil society
Final evaluation
Evaluation: PARTLY
Although in the first five cities in the country in terms of number of
immigrants there are both non-governmental organisations and cultural
mediators trained to provide information and to ensure the connection
between immigrants and local authorities/ institutions, we do not have
sufficient information on the activity of migrant organisations. In the case
of Bucharest the latter have a cultural specificity or they are religious
institutions and they are either not involved in immigrants' support, or
they provide support selectively. In addition collaboration between nongovernmental organisations is limited, it is often based on personal
contacts (it is not an organisational practice), and it does not always focus
on the immigrants' interest.
We believe there are no significant changes as compared to the 2014
evaluation of this indicator.
Evaluation: PARTLY
The good practices of non-governmental organisations are very little
promoted and for this reason difficult to identify. For this reason the best
known are the projects which enjoyed visibility as a result of the donor's
requirements, but which might not necessarily represent fully positive
examples. The good practices identified appear to lack an impact
assessment upon beneficiaries, which is an essential condition for
determining the efficiency of that approach.
10.3. Access of civil
society organisations
to funding from
various sources
Changes as compared to 2014 are not significant.
Evaluation: PARTLY
In 2014 there were several funding sources available for organisations in
the field of migration. The European funds for integration and refugees
99
Indicators
(public, private and
individual donations)
for programmes
targeting
immigrants.
Final evaluation
represented the main source for most NGOs. The latter's dependency on
the funds administered by IGI is worrisome. For the organisations which
provide social services, competition on other funding lines, which are not
specific for migration, is very tough and immigrants, although recognised
as vulnerable group, are not a priority for donors. Moreover, it appears
that the restrictions already noted regarding the ineligibility of immigrants
as target-group for open calls through POSDRU will continue in the new
version of the programme (POCU).
There are no significant differences from the indicator's evaluation in the
previous IIB edition.
Conclusions
The Civil society involvement dimension reflects the structures and relationships between NGOs in the
field of migration, migrants' NGOs, religious communities and the representatives of immigrants, as
well as the capacity of the former to resist financially in this niche sector. Non-governmental
organisations with experience in assisting migrants are well represented, but this is not the case with
migrant organisations which survive with much more difficulty in Romania. Strengthening the
organisational capacity and professionalizing the not-for-profit structures in migrant communities
should be a priority, and these organisations should have access to public funding, not only from
individual donations.
Good practices in immigrant support, which could represent models for public institutions and would
contribute to an increased visibility of immigrants in society, are not promoted by NGOs. In general
cooperation is not a strength of organisational practices, although the lack of cooperation is blamed
mainly on public institutions. For public institutions to acknowledge NGOs as equal partners in service
provision, the latter have to make more efforts to become visible, to promote their services and
methods.
Dedicated funding is insufficient for the providers of social services for migrants and the administration
of funds by IGI prevents contracted NGOS from being independent and from defending the
beneficiaries' interests unconditionally. The other funding sources are very difficult to access given the
competition on the social services market and the authorities' lack of interest towards migrants. The
other organisations, which are not specialised in direct services, have higher chances to obtain funding
through areas connected to migration, such as discrimination, human rights, social inclusion etc. We
believe immigrants should be included among the categories of beneficiaries of the other European
funding programmes, such as POCU and the entrepreneurship schemes. The change should be
100
supported by IGI as a way to transpose immigrant integration aspects into mass policies, in the spirit
of the public discourse of European officials.
Recommendations

developing the capacities of community organisations and migrant organisations to obtain
public funding, by encouraging partnerships with other civil society players and by training
programmes;

involving migrant organisations and community organisations as equal partners in evaluating
the needs and informing migrant groups;

lobby for including immigrants in the other European funding programmes aimed at labour
market integration and economic integration (including entrepreneurship schemes);

defining and promoting good practices in the activity of non-governmental organisations,
migrant and community organisations;

creating an online catalogue of organisations that provide services to immigrants;
101
11. Cultural rights (Ovidiu Voicu)
Overview
In the context of a relatively small number of immigrants present in Romania, our country remains
open to accepting cultural differences. There are no legal restrictions for expressing the immigrants'
right to culture, and survey data confirm that society remains largely tolerant to the differences
brought by immigrants.
There are however some signals which could open a discussion about how prepared we are to accept
a multicultural environment. A minority expresses rejection feelings against foreign cultures and,
although it is small, it may represent a nucleus of intolerance. Immigrants who have no citizenship,
although they stay legally in Romania, cannot participate in some activities or become members of
some creation groups. There is no active support yet through public programmes, which in practice
leads to some of the immigrants having no real opportunities to participate in programmes dedicated
to preserving their mother language and culture.
The IIB tries to cover by the name cultural rights more than the simple assertion of these rights through
legal acts. We are also interested in the real possibilities to make use of such rights, as well as citizens
attitude regarding the cultural influence of immigrants in the host society. Thus in the 2013 edition we
created two indicators, which we will also use in the current edition.
Table 40. Analysis of the Cultural Rights dimension
Indicators
Evaluation
YES [2]
11.1. Positive
Most people believe that
perceptions of
immigration has a positive
population
influence on the dominant
regarding the
culture and valorise
cultural
diversity.
influence of
immigration.
11.2. The
Authorities and citizens
possibility for
actively support immigrants
immigrants to
in preserving their culture
preserve their
and immigrants have real
language and
possibilities to do this.
culture
PARTLY [1]
Most people accept the
coexistence of the
dominant culture with
immigration cultures, but
are still reserved.
NO [0]
Most people believe that
immigration has a
negative influence upon
the dominant culture and
an assimilation policy is
necessary.
Immigrants have the
legal right to preserve
their own culture and
most people accept this,
but the actual
possibilities to do this are
limited.
Legislation requires
immigrants to adopt the
dominant culture and/or
there is a significant
public pressure in this
line.
102
As shown in the previous table, the first indicator refers to perceptions of the majority population, the
second indicator looks at the rights themselves, and the scale combines the assertion of rights with
the existence of a favourable framework for exerting them.
We used the following methods and information sources for measurement: representative national
poll, interviews with immigrants, secondary analysis of reports and studies published by other
organisations, analysis of documents on funding programmes at national level.
Population's perceptions
For the third consecutive year we introduced the same two indicators in the IIB research questionnaire,
through which we measure Romanians' perceptions of cultural differences induced by the presence of
immigrants in our country. The respondents were asked to express to what extent they agree to two
statements: "Immigrants degrade the cultural life of a country”, and "It is better for the society if
immigrants preserve their own customs and traditions". The answers were recorded on a four stage
scale (to a very large extent, to a large extent, to a small extent, to a very small extent). For the
purposes of this analysis we grouped the answers in three categories: agree (to a very large extent and
to a large extent); disagree (to a small extent and to a very small extent); and without an opinion (they
have not answered or they have no opinion).
The first image is the snapshot of January 2015. The two indicators measure different degrees of
rejection of immigrants' culture. In the first case, "Immigrants degrade the cultural life”, we speak of
clearly assigning foreigners a negative role, harmful for society. The optimistic reading of the graph is
that only 16% of respondents have this radical opinion about immigrants. However the fact that one
in six citizens has a xenophobic position, in the context of a limited contact with immigrants, may
represent a reason of concern.
Immigrants degrade the cultural life
of a country [%]
For the good of the society, it is
better when immigrants preserve
their own customs and traditions [%]
Agree, 16
Disagree, 74
No opinion, 10
Agree, 51
Disagree, 39
No opinion, 10
Figure 14. Romanians' perceptions of the immigrants' impact upon cultural life
103
The second indicator measures the degree to which respondents believe that cultural differences bring
benefits. While in the first case we spoke about acceptance, here we discuss about capitalising
immigrants' culture. It is remarkable that half of Romanians believe that accepting differences brings
social benefits, considering that on average our society is rather conservative.
The second image is a comparative view in time, with data from the three IIB editions, 2013-2015. The
three surveys used the same methodology, which enables comparison, with the remark that data were
collected by different companies, which may generate statistical errors. We note again that the error
margin for each survey is +/- 2.8%, which means that any difference between two surveys lower than
5.8% is below this error margin.
Immigrants degrade the cultural
life of a country [%]
71
74
14 15
16 10
73
For the good of the society, it is
better when immigrants
preserve their own customs and
traditions [%]
Agree
Disagree
No opinion
21
5
2013
2014
2015
Agree
Disagree
No opinion
5139
4539
4347
15
10
10
2013
2014
2015
Figure 15. Romanians' perceptions of the immigrants' impact upon cultural life - comparison between IIB 2013,
2014 and 2015
The graphs above show a picture which remained constant in time or we can even talk about a slight
increase in the acceptance of cultural differences. As regards the first indicator, the strong rejection,
the nucleus of intolerant people lies somewhere at 15%, with the differences between years given
mainly by the share of non-responses ("no opinion"). As regards the capitalisation of differences, data
seem to indicate an increasing trend, 43%-45%-51%, within the limit of the surveys' error margins.
Overall the society does certainly not reject cultural differences.
We obtained similar information from the qualitative component of the research, that is, from
interviews with immigrants undertaken during the three project years, as well as from reports of other
organisations who include immigrants' integration among their objectives. Foreigners who came to
Romania perceive the social environment as being open to cultural differences. Romanians are often
described as being curious and willing to know more about other people's culture and interactions are
generally presented as positive.
Overall, as we discovered in previous years, research data indicate a high level of tolerance in society
towards accepting cultural differences.
104
Cultural rights
To determine the current situation we looked at the relevant legislation and we checked the
perspective of immigrants' representatives on this subject. As we expected, there were no changes
during the last 12 months, which makes us resume the main observations.
Romanian legislation mentions either the individual’s rights, or the rights of various categories of aliens
with legal stay documents, or the rights of the citizen. The fundamental law of the Romanian state
includes the fundamental rights of the person, regardless of its status of citizen or the form of stay,
and the same applies to access to culture and the right to preserve their own culture. In other words,
cultural rights are fully affirmed.
On the other hand, the legislation which expressly refers to immigrants mentions mainly the categories
of aliens benefiting from a form of legal stay, with different access to rights and public services,
depending on their status. Thus aliens with a legal stay have in general access to the same rights as
Romanian citizens, with the exception of political rights or other rights specific to the quality of citizen.
The case of illegal immigrants is different, being mainly determined by their legal status.
A relevant example for the limitations generated by the lack of citizenship is access to funding for
national minorities. Only the recognised national minorities receive support from public budgets,
although in some cases the number of members of the respective community who still live in Romania
may be lower than the number of immigrants of a certain nationality.
Therefore immigrants’ organisations have to find private funding sources for their cultural activities.
In some cases the activities related to culture conservation are supported by embassies or cultural
institutes of the countries of origin. In most cases members’ contributions remain the main funding
source. There are also positive examples of fund raising campaigns. Even in these circumstances the
cultural life is quite active, with a large number of meetings, festivals, events etc.
In addition there are certain organisations which could have a major contribution to the harmonious
integration of immigrants' culture, which have conservative organisational structures: the
representative creation unions. Four of the six creation unions, namely the Union of Film Makers in
Romania, UNITER - the Theatre Union in Romania, the Union of Composers and Musicians and the
Union of Visual Artists, condition participation by obtaining Romanian citizenship. It is not clear why a
talented immigrant in one of those fields, who has a legal right to stay, could not have a contribution
to the activity of those organisations and thus to the Romanian cultural area.
105
Measuring progress
Table 41. Cultural Rights: final evaluation
Indicators
11.1. Positive perceptions
of population regarding
the cultural influence of
immigration.
Final evaluation
Evaluation: YES
The social environment is open and tolerant to cultural differences.
Romanians accept the positive contributions of immigration and only
a minority expresses feelings of rejection.
There are no significant changes as compared to last year.
11.2. The possibility for
immigrants to preserve
their language and
culture
Evaluation: PARTLY
Immigrants’ cultural rights are affirmed and observed. There are no
active support programmes for immigrant organisations, unlike, for
instance, the organisations of recognised national minorities. This
leads to some of the immigrants having no access to programmes to
put into practice the affirmed rights.
There are no significant changes as compared to last year.
106
12. Civic and political participation (Daniela Tarnovschi)
Overview
As mentioned in "Using EU indicators of Immigrant Integration" (2013: 28)42, the European Union has
a very wide agenda of public policies when it comes to active citizenship, considered as the acquisition
and exertion of equal rights and obligations for citizens and immigrants. This is based on the premise
that when immigrants are granted equal rights and obligations as citizens, they start to consider, and
to transmit to the others, that they belong to the host country, which enhances the social, economic
and political participation of immigrants, while also increasing acceptance by the public opinion.
Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX)43, an instrument which measures integration policies in all
European Union member states, plus Norway, Sweden, Canada and the United States of America,
considers the opening of the political scene and the award of civil rights as a sign that the host-country
is confident in immigration, that it sees it as a resource for development. According to 2010 data
published in MIPEX 44 , immigrants from the Baltic and Central and Eastern Europe countries have
almost no political and civic rights at all. In the case of these countries the immigrant has no
opportunity to contribute to political decisions which affect the city, the region and the country they
live in. The state restrict their basic civil rights: an immigrant may not establish a political association,
may not become member of a political party, may not work as a journalist. Only citizens (and EU ones)
have a right to vote. The state does not implement any public policy to encourage civic participation,
and the associations which represent immigrants' interests may not rely upon funding from the state.
In the last year of the Immigrant Integration Barometer we continued to use the dimension of 2014
which we called Immigrants’ civic and political participation in the host society. We considered this
dimension as an important part of the integration process in society, so we measured it by two
indicators: immigrants' rights and freedoms for civic participation and their rights and freedoms for
political participation. Similarly to 2014, we used a three level scale presented in the following table.
We used the following definitions for this research, and particularly for measuring civic and political
participation:
42
Huddleston T., Niessen J., Dag Tjaden J. (2013). “Using EU indicators of Immigrant Integration. Final Report for
Directorate-General for Home Affairs”
43
Migrant Integration Policy Index: www.mipex.eu (consulted on 8 April 2015)
44
MIPEX 2010: www.mipex.eu/political-participation (consulted on 8 April 2015)
107

civic participation: involves the rights to actively participate in the civil society (the right to
associate, to volunteer, to participate in consultative groups);

political participation: involves the right to meetings, the right to petitions, the right to vote
and to be voted, the right to be member of a political party and to establish a political party,
the right to participate directly in decision making.
Dimens
ion
Table 42. Analysis of the Civic and political participation dimension
Indicators
YES (2)
PARTLY (1)
NO (0)
12.1. Civic
participation
rights and
freedoms immigrants
are directly
and actively
involved in
society
(immigrants
networks and
organisations,
the associative
environment NGOs, trade
unions etc.).
Immigrants benefit
from civic
participation rights
and freedoms and
become actively
involved in society:
in activities of civil
society
organisations, they
do volunteering,
they are members of
trade unions, they
have their own
networks and/or
organisations (they
provide support to
immigrants, other
activities).
Immigrants benefit
from rights and
freedoms for
political participation
(election, political
and expression
rights) and they
exercise these rights.
Immigrants benefit
from civic
participation rights
and freedoms and
may get involved in
society (in civil
society
organisations, they
can do
volunteering, they
can be trade union
members, they can
have networks and
organisations), but
they do not do this.
Immigrants do
not benefit from
civic participation
rights and
freedoms and
cannot get
actively involved
in society.
Immigrants benefit
from rights and
freedoms for
political
participation
and expression
rights) but they do
not exercise these
rights.
Immigrants do
not benefit from
rights and
freedoms for
political
participation
and expression
rights).
12.2. Rights
and freedoms
for political
participation
Sources and
methods
Document
review
- legislation
Interviews
with
immigrants
Interviews
with
immigrant
NGOs
Document
review:
- legislation
Interviews
with
immigrants
108
According to MIPEX 201045, Romania received only 20 points out of 100 based on the review of existing
national policies on the political participation of immigrants, ranking among countries with an
unfavourable climate, together with Latvia and Lithuania. The ranking is led by Sweden with 77 points,
closely followed by Canada (71). In the Immigrant Integration Barometer we took into account, in
addition to a review of the legal and public policy framework, the direct experience of immigrants
(from an individual perspective and from that of migrants' non-governmental organisations), in order
to cover the implementation of the legislative and public policy framework.
Similarly to 2014 we analysed the legislative acts which include provisions on immigrants' civic and
political rights and freedoms: Romania's Constitution, Law 544/2001 on the free access to information
of public interest, the Law on social dialogue 62/2011, Law 29/1990 on contentious administrative
measures, Law on volunteering 78/2014, Law 60/1991 on the organisation and development of public
meetings, Political Parties’ Law 14/2003 and OUG 194/2002 on the regime of aliens in Romania,
Ordinance 27/2002 on petition solving activities, Law 52/2003 on decisional transparency in public
administration, the National Strategy on Immigration for 2011-2014 and the draft for public
consultation of the National Strategy on Immigration for 2015-2018, interviews with immigrants' NGOs
and individual interviews with migrants.
Civic participation rights and freedoms - immigrants are directly and actively involved in society
(immigrants’ networks and organisations, the associative environment - NGOs, trade unions etc.).
The Romanian Constitution requires the observance of the person’s fundamental rights, irrespective
of the citizen status or the form of residence. The same act also refers to aliens and stateless persons
and ensures the protection of the individual and property, extradition only in conditions of reciprocity
or based on international conventions, the right to use interpreters in justice and acquiring the right
to property over land in conditions of reciprocity. The following rights are guaranteed to a person
regardless of their quality of citizen: access to justice, the right to free expression, health protection,
life and physical integrity, information, education, defence and private life, access to culture, as well
as the right to strike.
The legislation which expressly refers to migrants mentions mainly the categories of aliens benefiting
from a form of legal stay, whose access to rights and public services differs depending on their status.
45
www.mipex.eu/play/map.php?chart_type=map&countries=3,35&objects=106&periods=2010&group_by=cou
ntry (consulted on 9 April 2015)
109
Thus, the beneficiaries of a form of protection have access to the same rights as Romanian citizens,
with the exception of political rights or other rights specific to the quality of citizen. In addition, minors
benefit from all the rights granted to minors who are Romanian citizens, once the age is determined.
Law 544/2001 on the free access to information of public interest provides that "any person has the
right to request and to obtain from public authorities and institutions, as per the provisions hereunder,
information of public interest”, and the Law on social dialogue 62/2011 allows immigrants to be trade
union members, to establish trade unions or employers' associations and to benefit from all provisions
of this law (representation in collective labour conflicts, participation in strikes, representation in
various positions on behalf of trade union or employers' organisations, resolution of labour conflicts
in court). In addition Law 29/1990 on contentious administrative matters refers to all natural or legal
persons who may appeal to the court should they consider themselves prejudiced, with respect to
their legal rights, by an administrative act or by the unjustified refusal of an administrative authority
to solve their application regarding a legally recognised right.
The Volunteering Law 78/2014 regulates the non-remunerated participation of natural persons, based
on their free will decision, to volunteering activities organised in Romania by public or private not-forprofit organisations. As regards the right to freedom of expression, Law 60/1991 on the organisation
and undertaking of public meetings has questionable provisions, stipulating that citizens have the
lawful freedom to express their political, social or other views, to organise meetings, demonstrations,
manifestations, parades and any other meetings and to participate in them. The law does not provide
any sanctions for migrants participating in public meetings, as long as they do not breach public order
or national security (according to the provisions of OUG 194/2002 on the regime of aliens in Romania).
However there is no correlation between the provisions of Law 60/1991 and Romania's Constitution
which allows everybody to participate in public meetings, according to Article 39 (Freedom of
meetings) and article 30 (Freedom of expression).
The National Strategy on Immigration for 2011-2014 provided the existence of a coordination group
for its implementation, comprising the competent institutions in this field, which had the possibility to
invite at its meetings representatives of other authorities as well as representatives of the civil society
or of international organisations in the field of immigration and asylum. In addition there was a specific
objective called "incorporating integration aspects in all other policies in relevant fields”, which
included among its directions for action "improving the civil society consultation and involvement
process within the integration process, by creating a consultation process for both the civil society and
the foreigner communities”. Unfortunately there is no public report for monitoring the implementation
of the 2011-2014 Strategy to indicate whether the objective was reached. In addition the National
110
Strategy for Immigration for 2015-2018 no longer includes such provisions (not even on the possibility
to invite civil society representatives to reunions of the coordination group), nor directions of action
to encourage civil society consultation and involvement in the alien integration process.
According to the Romanian legal framework, immigrants benefit from rights and freedoms for public
participation to a rather large extent and they have the possibility to become actively involved in
society. There are immigrant organisations organised by them. Some organisations are actively
involved in the public consultation processes organised by state institutions for elaborating legal acts
and public policies, they request information of public interest and they get actively involved in the
Romanian society by performing activities for the benefit of others, not just immigrants. However since
2015 these organisations are no longer considered partners of dialogue and consultation by state
institutions when it comes to designing public policies for immigrant integration. It should be noted
however that there are immigrants who participate, as volunteers or as paid staff, in activities of civil
society organisations, who are members of trade unions, who have their own networks and/or
organisations (they provide support to immigrants, other activities).
Rights and freedoms for political participation
As mentioned before, MIPEX 201046 ranks Romania in the lower range of the scale of countries with a
low openness towards immigrants' participation. According to Law 14/2003 on political parties and
OUG 194/2002 on the regime of aliens in Romania, political parties and political associations belong to
citizens, who are the only ones entitled to establish, organise and participate in such activities. The
right to vote and to be elected and the right to petition are guaranteed only to citizens, both at central
and at local level.
However Ordinance 27/2002 on the resolution of petitions provides that the latter may also be
formulated by legally established organisations; therefore legally established migrant organisations
(registered as per Ordinance 26/2000 on associations and foundations) may submit petitions.
Moreover, according to Law 52/2003 on decision making transparency in public administration,
citizens and legally established associations may participate in consultations for the law-making
process and may contribute with proposals, suggestions or opinions. It is true that in the case of both
rights (filing petitions and participation in consultations) immigrants may only participate through the
46
MIPEX 2010
www.mipex.eu/play/map.php?chart_type=map&countries=3,35&objects=106&periods=2010&group_by=country
(consulted on 9 April 2015)
111
organisations they established according to the law. It is however only citizens who may actively
participate in administrative decision making and in the elaboration of draft bills.
From the interviews with migrants taken in 2014 and 2013 we found that there are immigrants who
participated and participate in some NGOs operating in Romania, who are trade union members and
express their opinions through the organisations they established (petitions, proposals for drafting
legal acts etc.). The data collection form (interviews with immigrants) does not allow us to define the
scale of this phenomenon - that is, the number of immigrants who participated or participate in such
activities. In any case the general context of the low civic participation in Romanian society is not an
incentive for those with the status of “guests”.
Measuring progress
Table 43. Civic and political participation: final evaluation
Indicators
12.1. Rights and freedoms for civic
participation
Immigrants participate directly
and actively in society
(immigrants’ networks and
organisations, the associative
environment - NGOs, trade unions
etc.).
12.2. Rights and freedoms for
political participation
Final evaluation
Evaluation: YES
Immigrants benefit from some civic participation rights and
freedoms and become actively involved in society: in activities of
civil society organisations, they do volunteering, they are
members of trade unions, they have their own networks and/or
organisations (they provide support to immigrants, other
activities). While in 2014 immigrants' organisations had the
possibility to participate in consultations for the final drafts of
integration policies which affect them directly, in 2015 this is no
longer possible.
Evaluation: NO
Immigrants do not benefit from rights and freedoms for political
participation (election, political and expression rights).
Immigrants may, through the non-governmental organisations
established, file petitions and participate in some public
consultations.
Conclusions
The right to political participation in Romania is very limited for an immigrant. The latter may express
freely and may participate in public manifestations (as long as the latter do not prejudice national
security), but has no right to participate in political life, that is, s/he has no right to establish political
112
parties, to participate in their meetings, to be a member, to vote and to be voted, may not participate
directly in the decision making process and may submit petitions only through third parties (legally
established organisations). The integration in Romanian society cannot yield the expected results if
immigrants are not considered active members from a political point of view as well (the right to direct
petition and to direct participation in the decision making process). These are only a few small steps
to an inclusive society which sees migrants as a resource, giving them the possibility to actively
participate in society.
Recommendations

stimulating immigrants' civic participation by their better information on their rights and
freedoms in Romania, as well as on the provisions of the volunteering law;

reintroducing in the National Strategy on Immigration for 2015-2018 the mechanism for
consultation and involvement of the civil society and the foreigner communities in the design
and implementation of public policies on immigrants' integration;

amending the legislative framework with respect to immigrants’ political participation,
following the model of other European countries.
113
13. Obtaining citizenship and political integration (Victoria Cojocariu)
As mentioned before in the chapter explaining the conceptual framework of the research, the stage of
obtaining citizenship is the completion of an immigrant' integration process in the destination country.
Therefore in this edition of the Immigrant Integration Barometer we decided to perform an overall
analysis of legislation and the procedures for obtaining Romanian citizenship by immigrants and to see
whether and how stateless persons are considered for applying the procedure of obtaining Romanian
citizenship. We thus prepared two indicators and for each of them we defined three work hypotheses,
and scores from 0 to 2 were assigned to each of them - with figure 2 corresponding to the most
favourable situation for the given indicator.
To evaluate these indicators we updated the legislative review on immigration, we reviewed the
information obtained in the previous editions of the Immigrant Integration Barometer and we
contacted, through requests for public information, the institutions with responsibilities in the field
(the National Authority for Citizenship, the General Inspectorate for Immigration).
Table 44. Analysis of the dimension: Obtaining citizenship and political integration
Indicators
13.1. Overall analysis
of the legislation and
the procedure for
obtaining Romanian
citizenship by
immigrants
13.2. Easier
procedure for
obtaining citizenship
by stateless persons
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
The process of
The process of
obtaining citizenship obtaining citizenship
follows a
follows a
comprehensible,
comprehensible route,
easy to cover route
but is difficult to cover
and ensures full
and very long and
rights after
ensures limited rights.
citizenship is
obtained.
Stateless persons
Stateless persons
benefit from a more benefit from
favourable
affirmative measures
legislation and a
or additional
simplified procedure guarantees related to
for obtaining or
obtaining or losing
losing Romanian
Romanian citizenship.
citizenship.
NO [0]
The process of
obtaining citizenship
follows an
incomprehensible
route, difficult to cover
and unreasonable in
terms of time, limiting
access to several rights.
Stateless persons do
not benefit from a more
favourable legislation or
a simplified procedure
for obtaining or losing
Romanian citizenship.
In the previous editions of the Immigrant Integration Barometer we focused on analysing the
implementation of Romanian legislation on obtaining citizenship, namely the way how the citizenship
examination is organised (the 2013 edition) and the possibility to fully exert all civil and political rights
after obtaining Romanian citizenship (the 2014 edition). The conclusions we reached were that,
although legal provisions on obtaining Romanian citizenship by immigrants are quite reasonable, their
114
implementation remains deficient. We considered the Romanian legislation to be quite reasonable for
the following reasons: it allows the double citizenship and the minimum duration of the legal stay in
Romania is 5-8 years. Nevertheless there are some major obstacles in the path to obtaining citizenship
and these are mainly related to the way how the citizenship examination is organised. As mentioned
in previous editions, the volume of information which an applicant should assimilate is huge and
difficult to achieve in the absence of a thorough tuition support (manual). The problem is still
outstanding and, although a specific theme and an examination bibliography were published on the
National Authority for Citizenship's webpage at the beginning of 2014, at the time of writing this report
they are not available, and the only learning resource available for preparing the citizenship
examination is Romania's Constitution.
For a detailed analysis of legal conditions and procedures for obtaining Romanian citizenship we
recommend going through the chapters Citizenship and political integration (pages 68-72, Immigrant
Integration Barometer, 2013 edition) and Obtaining citizenship and political integration (pages 112118, Immigrant Integration Barometer, 2014 edition).
Table 45. Evaluation of the indicator: Overall analysis of the legislation and the procedure for obtaining
Romanian citizenship by immigrants
Indicator
Overall analysis
of the
legislation and
the procedure
for obtaining
Romanian
citizenship by
immigrants
YES [2]
PARTLY [1]
The process of
The process of obtaining
obtaining citizenship citizenship follows a
follows a
comprehensible route,
comprehensible,
but is difficult to cover
easy to cover route
and very long and
and ensures full
ensures limited rights.
rights after
citizenship is
obtained.
NO [0]
The process of obtaining
citizenship follows an
incomprehensible route,
difficult to cover and
unreasonable in terms of
time, limiting access to
several rights.
As regards the legal provisions on obtaining Romanian citizenship, no changes have been noticed as
compared to previous editions with an impact upon the process of obtaining citizenship by third
country nationals. As mentioned in the 2014 edition of the IIB, there were four proposals to amend
the Citizenship Law 21/1991. Only one of these proposals was tacitly adopted, regarding the
amendment of Art. 11 on the procedure for regaining citizenship by former Romanian citizens and
their descendants up to the third level, who lost citizenship against their will. Since previous year's
edition we identified another draft bill project for amending the same Article 11 on regaining Romanian
citizenship, which aims to relax the conditions for regaining citizenship (see the text box on the
following page).
115
Text box with an update of amendment proposals for Law 21/1991, consolidated, republished.
Legislative projects until 2014
 667/2013 – Draft bill proposal for completing Article 8 of the Romanian Citizenship Law no.
21/1991, which proposes the removal of certain conditions for granting Romanian citizenship
to
Romanian
ethnics
outside
the
borders
(available
at
www.cdep.ro/pls/proiecte/upl_pck.proiect?cam=2&idp=13892) – still on the Agenda of the
Chamber of Deputies.
 693/2013 – Draft bill proposal for amending Article 11 of the Romanian Citizenship Law no.
21/1991, which provides that Romanian ethnics who speak Romanian may obtain Romanian
citizenship if they demonstrate loyalty towards the Romanian state and people and if they
were not subject to any conviction which would make them unworthy of becoming Romanian
citizens (available at www.cdep.ro/pls/proiecte/upl_pck.proiect?cam=1&idp=17632) –
tacitly adopted by the Senate on 24 April 2014.
 220/2014 (former 799/2013) – Draft bill proposal for amending and completing the
Romanian Citizenship Law no. 21/1991, which proposes the reduction of the investment
amount necessary to reduce the duration of the legal stay required for obtaining citizenship
(available at www.cdep.ro/pls/proiecte/upl_pck.proiect?cam=2&idp=14155) – still on the
Agenda of the Chamber of Deputies.
 433/2014 (former 142/2014) – Draft bill proposal for amending Article 11 of the Romanian
Citizenship Law no. 21/1991, which proposes the facilitation of the procedures for
transcribing marital status documents for Romanian ethnics who obtain Romanian
citizenship (available at www.cdep.ro/pls/proiecte/upl_pck.proiect?cam=2&idp=14016) –
still on the Agenda of the Chamber of Deputies.
Legislative projects 2015
 BP114/2015 – Draft bill proposal for amending Article 11 of the Romanian Citizenship Law
no. 21/1991 – it proposes introducing a new paragraph in this article to enable keeping the
second citizenship and the domicile abroad for citizens who may apply for regaining
Romanian citizenship (available at www.cdep.ro/pls/proiecte/upl_pck.proiect?idp=14661) –
forwarded to the Senate.
We have noticed that during the last three years decision-makers' interest was quite high in facilitating
the procedures and relaxing conditions for granting Romanian citizenship to Romanian ethnics living
in other countries, and almost inexistent for amending the legislation on granting citizenship to the
immigrants settled in Romania, interested to become citizens of this country. This could be explained
by the hypothesis that decision-makers are more interested to provide a legislative remedy to the
consequences of some historic decisions than to act to solve current problems related to granting
Romanian citizenship for electoral reasons. Looking at the terms and conditions which Romanian
ethnics living in other countries have to meet, we can see that they become Romanian citizens sooner
and with less effort than the immigrants settled in Romania; therefore their support is more easily to
116
capitalise by politicians than would be the investment in a new citizen who faced many problems
during the 7 – 10 years47 of interaction with Romanian authorities trying to become Romanian citizen.
As regards the rights deriving from the citizenship obtained by the immigrant, the situation remains
positive, as we evaluated in last year's edition of the Immigrant Integration Barometer, and they enjoy
full civil and political rights. The only difference between an immigrant who obtained citizenship and a
Romanian citizen by birth is the fact that citizenship cannot be withdrawn from the latter (Article 24
of the Law on Romanian citizenship no. 21/1991).
Table 46. Obtaining citizenship and political integration: final evaluation
Indicator
Final evaluation
Overall analysis of the
legislation and the
procedure for obtaining
Romanian citizenship by
immigrants
Evaluation: PARTLY [1]
The process of obtaining citizenship follows a rather
comprehensible route, but which is difficult to cover and very
long. After obtaining citizenship, the rights obtained are equal
to those of any other Romanian citizen.
47
We refer to the number of years of stable domicile in Romania which a foreign citizen has to demonstrate
when applying for citizenship, unless s/he is a Romanian ethnic or a descendant of a Romanian ethnic (five years
in the case of an immigrant married to a Romanian citizen, eight years in other cases); we also consider the
approximately two years required for processing and evaluating the applicant's file (see the 2013 and 2014
editions of the Immigrant Integration Barometer).
117
ANNEX: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE RESEARCH48
The Immigrant Integration Barometer (IIB) is an instrument which analyses the extent to which the
Romanian society capitalizes and enables the social inclusion of immigrants, especially of those coming
from outside the EU.
To reach this objective IIB aims to analyse, similarly to the previous years (2013 and 2014) the three
main levels of immigrant integration or inclusion which we have left unchanged:
1. Ideal of integration – the widest concept definition, at the level of fundamental rights, as
resulting from declarations, conventions and international treaties. This aspect responds to
the need for a reference system, as well as to the self-imposed condition to take into account
the European context.
2. Vision of integration – stated rights, specific public policies and legislation in Romania; to what
extent the vision is close to the ideal of integration. This is the first level of analysis of the
situation in Romania and it refers to what is stated in the legislation in force.
3. Practice of integration – perceptions and opinions of citizens; how public institutions
implement the specific policies and legislation; to what extent the practice is close to the
vision. This is the in-depth level of analysis and it includes two important components. On the
one hand, we observe to what extent the legal provisions are implemented, on the other hand
we analyse whether society internalized the stated values.
Figure 16. The three plans of the research
The Ideal of integration is the reference system of the comparative endeavour, against which we
measure progress. It is the most stable element of the entire conceptual framework. Because changes
48
The conceptual framework of the research was developed by the research team during the three project years.
This annex resumes the initial text, with completions where necessary.
118
at this level are rare, we can even consider it a fixed element and, as such, it finds its place as integral
part of the conceptual framework.
The second plan, the vision of integration, is specific to the Romanian context and it has some firm
components (visions of policies, multi-annual strategies) and some flexible components (procedures,
standards, even legislation). In addition, there are previous analyses (quoted in the literature review,
another product of this project). Adding a document analysis endeavour to the secondary analysis of
the mentioned sources, we can include even since the beginning a first evaluation of this aspect in the
conceptual framework, in the form of hypotheses.
The third plan, the practice of integration, is the most dynamic and it is the main object of annual
evaluation, using the research methods proposed by the project and the ones added by the research
team. At the level of the conceptual framework, we can mention the methods used, besides the
research hypotheses, and we will add a list of field instruments.
This division into three plans is very useful when we speak about comparisons over time (as the
Barometer is designed to do) or between countries (as the instrument can be used in the future). First
of all, it provides an absolute reference - the Ideal of Integration plan - because this changes very slowly
and because there is a certain maturity of the discourse on rights which enables the fixation of this
plan. Second, it separates the concrete actions of the society analysed between the declaratory level the Vision of Integration plan - and the action level - the Practice of integration plan. This is a necessary
aspect particularly for countries such as Romania, where we traditionally face a serious issue with the
implementation of existing legislation (or in other words, a double standard issue, we say one thing
and we do another one). This separation is actually one of the important points gained by the IIB over
other similar research (for instance MIPEX), which do not go beyond a legislation analysis and draw
some conclusions untimely. Third, the division down to the level of practice enables the use of the
instrument on the short term as well, as is the case of the IIB, repeated annually over the first three
years. We do not expect major changes of vision during one year, but we can identify important
changes in practice.
119
The integration dimensions: evolution 2013-2015
Migration is of course a complex, rapidly changing phenomenon, and for this reason it is difficult to
describe in a comprehensive analysis. This is actually one of the reasons why there is still no consensus
in the specialised literature on an analysis scheme.
For the first edition of the IIB the research team divided the phenomenon into 14 dimensions,
organised on five levels. This made it possible to define specific indicators for each dimension,
facilitating the assessment. This organisation along five levels took into account the migration stages,
since entering the host society (the first level, two dimensions), going further with the gradual
integration (11 dimensions organised along three levels) up to obtaining citizenship, which means
recognition and full rights (the last level, one dimension). The 14 dimensions were projected in turns
on the three plans of integration, to obtain pictures of the current situation. This implementation of
concepts was very useful for detailing the third plan, the practice, because it made it possible, by
formulating indicators, to assess the legislation body and its enforcement.
After the IIB-2013 report was published, during the debates which followed, several conceptual
objections were formulated with respect to the proposed implementation. The research team retained
several of them and updated the dimension model or the structure of indicators. The reformulation of
indicators will be detailed for each dimension separately. The reorganisation of dimensions and levels
is explained in the table below, which shows a comparative situation over the two years:
Table 47. Levels, dimensions and stages of the research - comparison between IIB 2013 and 2014
IIB 2013
Level
Openness
Dimension
Free movement
Recognition and acceptance
Acceptance Strategic planning
Non-discrimination
Language and education
Basic
support
Inclusion
Citizenship
Health
Welfare
Labour
Social support
Society and culture
Civic participation
Affirmative measures
Citizenship and political
integration
IIB 2014
Dimension
Free movement
Public opinion
Strategic planning
Non-discrimination
Host-country language and
culture
Education
Welfare
Labour and economic integration
Cultural rights
Obtaining citizenship and political
integration
Stage
Entry
Settlement
Naturalisation
120
We appreciated that integration is a process which a person can cover, since the entry point into the
country until they manage to be integrated in the society (ideal situation, impossible to reach). In this
analytical endeavour we considered the existence of three stages which an immigrant may go through:
entry (on Romania's territory), which can be followed by settlement, which again may be followed by
naturalisation. Based on previous experience we realised that the integration process is far from being
linear, so we limited the scheme to the three stages. We considered that naturalisation (obtaining
citizenship) is the closest level an immigrant can reach in their integration process in the host country.
In order to better analyse the phenomenon we divided the three stages in 14 dimensions.
The entry, a migrant's possibility to come to Romania, is measured by a single dimension: free
movement. At the level 0 of an immigrant’s possibility to integrate we speak about a closed society,
which isolates and locks its borders, being, by its legislation and enforcement, a totally hostile world
for immigration. In order to be able to start speaking of immigrants’ integration, we need a minimum
openness of the society and therefore this is Level Zero, the start point.
We had as benchmark the human ideal (“every human being should be able to choose to live anywhere
on the planet, with no restrictions”); however, considering that this ideal is far from any international
regulation, we preferred a more restrictive measure of free movement.
Once the immigrant has entered the host country it can be assumed that s/he has chances to
commence the integration process. This stage, called Settlement, is the widest, the most
comprehensive and may last longest. We considered that the integration process covered by a migrant,
once arrived in Romania, is influenced by 12 variables/dimensions: a tolerant public opinion which
supports the existence of immigrant integration programmes; the statement of non-discrimination;
family reunification, the immigrant’s possibility to bring their family with them to live together;
welfare, the possibility to live a decent life, with support from the host country; the civil society’s
involvement in supporting immigrant integration; labour and economic integration, the possibility to
find a job or open a business; the possibility of civic and political participation in society, so civic and
political participation; the effort of national and public local authorities to support immigrants'
integration, expressed as strategic planning; the affirmation and observance of their cultural rights, so
the possibility to preserve and affirm their cultural identity; facilitating aliens’ access to the hostcountry language and culture; facilitating access to education, up to benefiting from a special aid,
positive discrimination by affirmative measures.
121
After going through the “thicket” of factors which facilitate or hinder an alien’s integration in the
destination country, the latter may be at a stage when they may decide that they want to become part
of the citizens’ body of the host country. This is the naturalisation stage, the higher level of an alien’s
integration in the host country. In this case we have only one dimension - obtaining citizenship and
political integration.
Thus the main changes in 2014 as compared to 2013 regarding the Barometer structure, from the point
of view of integration dimensions, were:
1. The three-level differentiation of the second stage, the gradual integration, was abandoned.
This was a response both to the feed-back received from other researchers and to the
conclusions drawn from applying the instrument. The three levels had been built on
theoretical bases, looking in the specialised literature for migration analysis models proposed.
It appeared however that in real life we meet a wide variety of situations, being therefore
difficult to identify dimensions along which integration usually occurs sooner than in others.
Therefore in IIB 2014 we considered only the three stages of integration (entry, settlement,
integration), leaving aside the levels. Last but not least, this approach is closer to that of the
European Commission.
2. Certain dimensions were redefined, as follows:

The Recognition and acceptance dimension was renamed Public Opinion and it refers
exclusively to the public; the legislative component can be found in the Non-discrimination
dimension. An overlapping between two dimensions was thus eliminated.

The Language and education dimension proved to be too complex and was separated in
two dimensions, Host Country language and culture and Education respectively.

The Welfare and Health dimensions were merged in one dimension called Welfare, which
includes now all indicators relating to access to public social support systems.

The Labour dimension was added an economic integration component, which covers cases
when immigrants do not seek a job but other types of economic activities (entrepreneurs,
freelancers etc.).

Two dimensions, Social support and Society and culture, were renamed, without any
significant content changes, in order to define more precisely the themes covered. The
new names are Civil society involvement and Cultural rights respectively.

The Civic participation dimension was added a Political participation component, to cover
cases when immigrants get involved in the political life of society, not necessarily by voting,
before obtaining citizenship.
122
All these amendments aimed to balance the content of dimensions and to cover more precisely the
range of situations encountered in practice. In addition they respond to the recommendations and
observations received from other researchers and specialists.
We described in detail the 2014 model because it proved much better connected to the reality of the
studied phenomenon and it was much better received by the research community. This is also
indicated by the fact that we introduced only one important modification in 2015, as shown in the
following table:
Table 48. Levels, dimensions and stages of the research - comparison between IIB 2014 and 2015
IIB 2014
Level
Entry
IIB 2015
Dimension
Dimension
Stage
Free movement
Free movement
Public opinion
Public opinion
Strategic planning
Strategic planning
Non-discrimination
Non-discrimination
Host-country language and Host-country language and
culture
culture
Education
Education
Settlement
Settlement
Welfare
Welfare
Labour
and
economic Labour
and
economic
integration
integration
Cultural rights
Cultural rights
Civic and political participation Civic and political participation
Naturalisation Obtaining citizenship and
Obtaining citizenship and
Naturalisation
The analysis of concepts included in the Affirmative measures dimension, including in the international
conference organised within the project, showed that such measures are always associated to another
dimension, they do not exist as a purpose by themselves. We speak, for instance, about affirmative
measures when looking at the scholarships for youth from the Republic of Moldova or the simpler
procedure for obtaining citizenship, but these are part of the education and political integration
packages respectively, so they should be analysed in these contexts. Therefore the Affirmative
measures dimension was removed from the model, and the associated indicators were distributed to
the other dimensions. This resulted in the model with three stages and 13 dimensions used in 2015
and analysed in this report.
123
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Immigrant Integration Barometer, 2015 edition

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