The representatives of the Romanian communities have shown President Traian Basescu and the Minister of National Defence, Mircea Dusa, the problems they face in the countries they live in.
Father Boian Alexandrovich, the representative of the Romanians in the Timoc Valley, said that since 1883, when they "were tied to" Serbia, the 350,000 Romanians living in 154 Romanian villages and 48 mixed towns have been forbidden to learn Romanian in school and pray in their own language.
The father said that "without the help of Mother Country, Romania" , the Romanians in Serbian Timoc "soon” disappear.
"Not even to this day, we are not allowed to learn Romanian and pray to God in Romanian. The Serbian state divided us into Romanian and Vlach, because they want to break our link to the Mother Country. The important thing is that you help us build churches, to pay a priest his salary, help us keep our identity, our Romanian culture and language. You should help us now while we can still do something, "said Father Boian.
In his turn, Vasile Tărâţeanu, the representative of the Romanians in Ukraine, said that the situation of the Romanian communities "in northern Bukovina gets more and more complicated by the day ," becoming increasingly difficult. The laws adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament, which would apparently give the Romanian community its rights, are in fact closing schools with tuition in Romanian, the official said.
“ The backbone of the Romanians living there has been broken. They are conducting a strong campaign against the Romanians who want to preserve their mother tongue. In 20 years of Ukrainian new democratic regime we have lost 20 schools. Earlier in the Soviet period, there were 120 schools, at the end there were 90 and now there are only 70, "said Tărâţeanu.
Anatol Popescu, president of the "Bessarabia" Association of Romanians living in Odessa, urged Romanian authorities to reopen dialogue with the Romanians in Southern Bessarabia.
“We ask authorities in the Mother Country to reopen the dialogue with Romanians in Southern Bessarabia. They need a cultural center in Ismail, to help preserve the identity of Romanians there, "he said.
Ivo Gheorghiev, the representative of Romanians in Bulgaria, drew attention to the assimilation process that can be stopped by three levers: the school, the media and the Church
"We turn our request to the Romanian state, we pray you to intervene at political and state level, until they understand that we used to have more rights after the Turkish occupation than we do now, we had a school, a church, and even a newspaper. If we are going back to what we used to have after the Turkish occupation, if we had at least half of the right the Hungarians have here, in Romania, then we will be satisfied "Gheorghiev said.
The Summer University at Izvoru Mures began Monday, attending the debates, there were President Traian Basescu, Defense Minister Mircea Dusa, parliamentarians and representatives of the Romanian communities abroad.
