Romanian migration to the United Kingdom

Infobox Ethnic group
group = People in the United Kingdom with Romanian ancestry


caption = Notable Romanian Britons:
"'Moses Gaster, Vera Atkins
flagicon|Romania flagicon|UK
poptime = Est. 50,000
popplace = London
langs = English, Romanian
rels = Romanian Orthodox Church, Judaism

Romanian migration to the United Kingdom refers to the phenomenon of Romanian people moving to the United Kingdom as citizens or non-citizen immigrants.

History, population and settlement

The small number of Romanians that first arrived in Britain were primarily Jews fleeing persecution during the Second World War. In the 1950s, ACARDA ("Asociatia Culturala a Romanilor din Anglia" - The Cultural Association the Romanians in England) was founded by Ion Ratiu and Horia Georgescu working together with various individuals, notably the small Romanian community.It wasn't until the run up to January 2007 when Romania was admitted into the EU and afterwards, that immigration grew significantly.
Initial government statistics show that, in the first three months of 2008, about 8,000 citizens of Romanian origin came to the United Kingdom, applied for and been granted worker registration certificates and accession worker cards.9,305 applications for worker registration certificates were submitted, of which 7,120 were approved. Just under 4,600 were from Romanians. In addition, 1,115 of the new European Union citizens applied for accession worker cards, of which 815 were approved.In addition to these longer term workers, 2,400 more have taken advantage of the agricultural worker scheme and come in for seasonal work. [ http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=2081] “A figure of 600,000 has been quoted as those who arrived and registered under the Workers Registration Scheme – but many of those who registered were in the UK already [ [http://londra.mae.ro/upload/docs/12308_IAS_Press_Release.pdf Report on Romanian population numbers in the UK] ] [ [http://www.workpermit.com/news/2007-05-22/uk/romanian-bulgarian-migration-statistics-01.htm Romanian migration statistics] ] Most Romanians are widely dispersed throughout the UK with populations in London and all the other major cities. There is even a society for Romanians in Scotland [ [http://www.scotro.org.uk/ The Scottish Romainian Society] ] .

Culture

Most Romanians practice the Orthodox religion and there are a total of 11 churches in the UK, 7 of them in London. In particular, the Romanian Orthodox Church in Fleet Street, London holds family-oriented and Romanian-style traditional Christmas celebrations continuing until the New Year, with the feasts of St Stephen (27 December), New Year’s Day, St Basil the Great (1 January), the Baptism of Christ (6 January), and St John the Baptist (7 January).

Famous Britons of Romanian descent

*Vera Atkins, Intelligence Officer during World War II
*J. J. Benjamin, Historian
*Octav Botnar, Businessman
*Alina Cojocaru, Dancer
*George Constantinescu, Scientist, Engineer and Inventor
*Moses Gaster, Scholar
*David Mitrany, scholar
*The Cheeky Girls, Singers
*George Iacobescu, Chief executive of the Canary Wharf Group
*Ion Raţiu, Politician
*Simona Armstrong, Singer and actress

ee also

*Romanian diaspora

References

External links

* [http://www.romanianculturalcentre.org.uk/index.php/about-us Romanian cultural centre of London]
* [http://romaninuk.net Roman in UK - newspaper for Romanians in the UK]
* [http://londonromaniansda.com/index_engl.html London Romanian Seventh Day Adventist Church]
* [http://www.radur.homechoice.co.uk/roc.html Romanian Orthodox Church]
* [http://www.romani-online.co.uk/ Romani Online]
* [http://www.diasporaonline.ro/ Diaspora online]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/romanian/learningenglish/ BBC English Language portal]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6222991.stm BBC news - Romanians in Britain]