Romanians make up the second largest group of foreign residents in Spain (just behind Moroccans), and now Spanish and Romanian authorities want to make it easier for them to gain Spanish citizenship, whilst still retaining their original Romanians citizenship.
The governments of both countries “have exchanged draft legislation” to allow this to happen, but still haven’t yet reached an agreement, so it’s still unclear exactly when this will happen.
According to the latest stats from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2024, there were 620,463 Romanians residing in Spain.
Many of these who were eligible for Spanish citizenship still hadn’t applied due the fact that they were unable to obtain dual nationality. This is because of a lack of a specific bilateral agreement between both countries.
Sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by José Manuel Albares told news site InfoBae that “there have been meetings regarding this deal with Romania and drafts have been exchanged. We are working on a definitive text”.
In mid-2024 the government of Romania announced that its citizens residing in Spain could have dual nationality before the end of the year, but as of yet this still hasn’t happened. “In the talks in Bucharest with the Prime Minister of the government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, we have harmonised the negotiations on this important issue,” said the Prime Minister of Romania Marcel Ciolacu, on Facebook.
Technically, without a bilateral agreement in place, you are supposed to renounce your original nationality when applying for Spanish citizenship. This process takes time and money, so many people simply don’t bother. However, if Spain finds out in the future that they didn’t do this, they could take their new Spanish one away.
Dual citizenship: Does Spain check if you’ve renounced your original nationality?
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There are only a three countries in Europe with which Spain has one of these dual nationality agreements with: France, Portugal and Andorra.
Outside Europe, Spain also has agreements with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Ecuador, Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
According to Spain’s Ministry of Justice. “The consequence of dual nationality is the existence of a double legal bond”. The person with dual nationality is, at the same time a national of two countries, enjoying the “full legal status of nationals of both states”.
But the ministry stresses that “this does not mean that these people can be simultaneously subject to the legislation of both countries”. They will instead give preference to one of the nationalities.
Most agreements take domicile as a point of reference, so that these citizens “will not be constantly subject to both legislations, but only to that of the country in which they have established their domicile. This will apply to issues such as the granting of a passport, diplomatic protection, the exercise of civil and political rights, work and Social Security rights and military obligations”.
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Interestingly, Romanian citizens have been leaving Spain in droves in recent years and heading back home due to the fact that the Romanian economy there has been greatly improving.
A total of 30 percent of Romanians who lived in Spain have left in a few years, which may aggravate Spain’s labour shortage, although a more lenient migration policy by Sánchez’s leftists government is looking to fix these scarcities.
From 2012 to 2022, the Romanian population in Spain decreased by more than 250,000 people.
Whether this new agreement will help them to change their minds and encourage them stay still remains to be seen.
