Thousands of citizens of the Moldovan Republic have been waiting for two days before the Romanian consulate in Chisinau to obtain travel visas to Romania.

Long queues and bad weather have sparked discontent towards local and Romanian authorities, prompting the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest to announce measures to boost the capacity to process the visa applications from Moldovan citizens temporarily.

An online facility for Romanian visa applications was blocked due to a large number of requests over the past several days as Romania has officially become a member of the European Union.

That comes as Communist authorities in Chisinau have been ignoring Romanian proposals to open two new consulates in its eastern neighbor, according to Deutsche Welle.

That forces thousands of Moldovan citizens who failed to obtain Romanian nationality before December 2006 to spend night and day at the gates of the existing Romanian consulate.