REPORT ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF MOBILE EU CITIZENS: ROMANIA

Since Romania’s accession to the European Union, resident EU citizens enjoy the right to vote in and stand for local elections and European Parliament (EP) elections held in Romania. Due to the fact that non-resident nationals vastly outnumber EU citizens residing in Romania, the enfranchisement of Romanians abroad is, however, a much more salient issue in Romania. Non-resident nationals may vote in national and EP elections, but cannot stand as candidates if they are registered with the domicile abroad. The turnout of non-citizen resident and non-resident citizens in elections held in Romania is overall quite low. Possible facilitators would be to simplify the voting and registration procedure and to introduce more awareness raising campaigns specifically targeting resident EU citizens and Romanians abroad.