Romanian Consulate wants to get rid of queues by appointment scheduling

An appointment scheduling system was instituted at the Romanian Consulate located on Gh. Ureche St in Chisinau three days ago in order to get rid of the endless queues and prevent the intermediaries from staying in front of the Consulate. Tiberiu Trifan, the head of the Romanian Embassy's Consular Division, told Info-Prim Neo that the persons spend by at most 45 minutes to schedule an appointment and 10 minutes to file the documents for obtaining a visa. Until now, the applicants queued up for hours. The applicant presents the foreign passport and receives a ticket showing the date and hour of the appointment. According to Tiberiu Trifan, the term does not exceed 48 hours since making the appointment. The offices that schedule appointments work from Monday through Friday, between 8am and 12 noon. The travel agencies and organized groups do not need appointments, but must submit a notification by fax at least 48 hours beforehand. The cases of medical emergency, death and other emergencies will be examined without appointments. The representatives of public institutions who go on business trip also do not need to make appointments. The Romanian Consulate intends to introduce an online appointment scheduling system. According to employees of the Consulate, about 600 visas for Romania are issued in Chisinau every day.