President Iohannis: I would like to see Romanians living abroad return home

Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis has said in a speech delivered on the country’s National Day, on December 1, that he would like to see the Romanians living abroad return home.

“The Union is our celebration, everyone’s, regardless of where we are. I would like to see the Romanians living today in various parts of the world return home. That they find here a functional Romania, a normal country, that offers them the chance of a better future and where they can make a decent living. I believe this vision can one day become a reality and it is, first of all, up to us to make it possible,” Iohannis said in a speech delivered at the National Day reception, held at the Cotroceni Palace.

The president also said that Romanians need to celebrate the National Day with the conviction that the happiness and prosperity that the forefathers wished for the nation depend, first of all, on the people’s involvement, choices and options.

“We all have a responsibility to the memory of those who made possible the ideal of the Great Union, but, furthermore, we have a great responsibility to the generations to come, whose destiny will be influenced to a large extent by our decisions as well. The past cannot be changed, it can be embraced, with its good and bad. But the future can be designed as we like it to be, and 2019 proved it fully!,” the president said.

President Iohannis has just won a second term after the second round of the presidential elections, held on November 24. More than 900,000 Romanians voted abroad in the second round of the presidential elections. The number is more than double compared to the second round of the presidential elections in 2014 when 377,000 Romanians voted abroad, of whom close to 90% voted for Klaus Iohannis.

A record number of over 675,000 Romanians voted abroad in the first round of the presidential elections of this year, more than half of whom voted for president Klaus Iohannis. His opponent, former PM Viorica Dancila, got a very low score in Diaspora.

On December 1, Romania celebrated the Great Union of 1918, when Transylvania, Basarabia, and Bucovina united with the Romanian Kingdom of the time.

(Photo: presidency.ro)