Interim Foreign Affairs Minister Oana Toiu has announced that Italian President Sergio Mattarella has promulgated the law officially recognising the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy.

'A piece of good news for Romanians in Italy. President Sergio Mattarella has promulgated the law by which the Italian state officially recognises the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy, following a unanimous vote in both chambers of the Italian Parliament. A few examples of what this means in practice, starting in August: a wedding ceremony conducted in a Romanian church in Italy will be a marriage recognised by the Italian state, or when a patient asks for their priest to be allowed into hospital, they will be given access. They may seem like bureaucratic details, but for Romanians in the diaspora they are the way a state tells you: I see you, you exist and you belong to your community,' Oana Toiu explained in a message posted on Facebook on Sunday.

She noted that the more than one million Romanians in Italy constitute one of the largest and oldest Romanian communities outside the country's borders and, at the same time, are part of Italian society.

'At a time when almost nothing is unanimous any more, all Italian parties voted in the same way for Romanians, and we thank them for that. In the discussions I had in the Italian Parliament during my visit to Rome, as well as during visits and meetings of parliamentary delegations, which play a key role in keeping diplomatic issues on the working agenda of parliamentary parties in other countries, the concerns of Romanians were confirmed by all as important on the legislative agenda, and this has a tangible impact.

'But it is appropriate to publicly acknowledge, first and foremost, the two years of work by the Romanian Embassy in Italy, a sustained effort alongside the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Italy, towards something that is part of what the Romanian community had asked for. We are grateful to them. Meetings and statements of intent are often what is seen, but diplomacy also pursues and delivers concrete results over time. This is something we should talk about, because we can do so while acknowledging that relations with Romanian communities abroad are an area where trust needs to be rebuilt at every level, focusing on what matters to them,' the Foreign Minister added. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Eusebi Manolache; EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)