registration for some parents (e.g. migrants, same-sex parents).26 26. Births must be registered within 15 days, after which approval of the mayor is required. After one year, registration is only possible through a court procedure, which involves verification of the child’s identity, age, and sex. Legal aid is not available for people who are unregistered, and a medico-legal assessment is required, which incurs a fee for adults. The age-assessment process is reportedly unpleasant and uncomfortable, which may deter people from accessing the procedure. The procedure is even more difficult (if not impossible) for people who were not born in medical facilities and do not have a medical certificate of birth.27 Discrimination against Roma children 27. Roma people are one of the groups most at risk of children being stateless, due to a complex range of issues, including extreme poverty, social exclusion, and antigypsyism. There appear to be many Roma children and young adults who remain unregistered at birth and who would need to undergo the complex court procedure to register later in life. The risk is heightened for children born to parents who themselves are undocumented, thus perpetuating the lack of legal identity and risk of statelessness.28 28. Although the Romanian Government introduced rules in 2016 to facilitate birth registration by undocumented parents, there have been no recent proactive action or campaigns by the Romanian authorities to reduce statelessness or promote birth registration by undocumented parents and among groups at risk of statelessness. Progress on this may have been hindered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Safeguards to prevent statelessness at birth 29. There is no legal provision which provides for children born stateless on the territory to acquire Romanian nationality, which significantly hinders children’s right to a nationality and exacerbates the risk of children growing up stateless in Romania. The only option for a stateless child born on the territory is to apply for naturalisation alongside their parent/s if they can meet the general conditions set out in the law. Non-Romanians living in Romania (including stateless persons) may be eligible to apply for naturalisation after eight years of lawful residence. The timeframe is reduced to four years for refugees and other categories, but there is no reduction for stateless people. There are no other exemptions for stateless people from general naturalisation requirements, which include having means of subsistence, knowledge of language and culture, and integration requirements. There are good character requirements for naturalisation, including proof of loyalty to the Romanian State, national security grounds, and ‘good conduct’, which may also result in additional barriers for some stateless people to access 26 ENS, Ending Childhood Statelessness: A Study on Romania, Working Paper 01/15, 2015, p.10: https://www.statelessness.eu/updates/publication/ending-childhood-statelessness-study-romania; Government Decision no. 64/2001 on the Methodology for the unitary application of dispositions concerning civil status., Official Gazette No. 151 of 2 March 2011, Art. 24 (21): http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocumentAfis/220201 (RO). 27 Act No. 272/2004 on the Protection and promotion of the rights of the child, Article 14: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/52909 (RO); Act No. 119/1996 on Civil Status Documents, Arts. 18: http://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/8624 (RO); ENS, Ending Childhood Statelessness: A Study on Romania, Working Paper 01/15, 2015: https://www.statelessness.eu/updates/publication/ending-childhood-statelessness-study-romania. 28 ENS, Ending Childhood Statelessness: A Study on Romania, Working Paper 01/15, 2015: https://www.statelessness.eu/updates/publication/ending-childhood-statelessness-study-romania; European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey Roma – Selected findings, 2016: https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-2016-eu-minorities-survey-roma-selected-findings_en.pdf. 7