As part of its ‘Know Your Rights in Romania’ programme, a team of Romanian lawyers from DLA Piper have produced a guide to support Ukranian refugees in navigating various aspects of the Romanian legal system, and understanding their rights. The publication follows a day-long seminar on the same topics, run by the firm’s Bucharest office alongside Oracle’s EMEA legal team, and in collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency, the Romanian National Council for Refugees, and the Romanian Forum for Refugees and Migrants.

The guide, designed to help Ukrainian refugees settle in Romania, contains information on starting work, finding accommodation, accessing education, and navigating the Romanian legal system. It is the latest activity in the firm’s Know Your Rights series, a legal education programme developed by DLA Piper to provide much-needed legal assistance for refugees and asylum seekers building new lives in Romania. Know Your Rights looks to support asylum seekers and refugees, empowering them to better integrate, advocate for their interests, and pursue professional and personal goals. Further editions will be running throughout 2022 in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and Germany.

Cian O’Brien, Policy Officer, UNHCR: “I work for the UNHCR in Geneva, and I’m here in Bucharest to help Ukrainian refugees with employment matters in Romania. What we’ve seen is that with the 80,000-90,000 refugees that are here at the moment, there’s a lot of interest in this subject. And I think the workshop today has been incredibly helpful in informing people about their rights, how to access the labour market, and for those who want to start their own businesses. I really commend DLA Piper for all their efforts on this, and we look forward to working together on helping people to get access to the labour market in the coming months and years.”

Know Your Rights’ participant: “My family and I are from Odesa, Ukraine; we’ve been in Romania for quite some time since the beginning of the war, and the information that was presented in today’s seminar was extremely relevant. The topics they covered varied from rights in employment, rental rights and the real estate sector and the NGO sector, and how to watch out for scams or abuse. So it was extremely informative and it was nice to see such a wide variety of topics covered. They were extremely helpful, particularly information about qualifications and diplomas and how they can be transferred to Romania and the EU. I’ll be sharing this information with my family and with people in the Ukrainian community here in Romania. I’m very grateful that I came to participate, to learn a lot, and I’m thankful to be part of this seminar.”

Amalia Musat, Counsel and pro bono coordinator DLA Piper: “I’m happy that today, together with my colleagues, we had the opportunity to support and advise the Ukrainian community in Bucharest. This was an amazing event, focused on how to live and work in Romania. The seminar had great energy and offered a lot of information for our participants. We’re now hoping to put on another seminar.”

The DLA Piper team in Bucharest who took part in the seminar included: Amalia Muşat, Elena Monica Preoţescu, Florin Ţineghe, Diana Năcuţă, Elena Zoiţa Noemi Popa, Cristina Popescu, and Daniel Secărea; with special thanks to Ana Maria Voicu, Camelia Chiricescu, Gabriela Petrea and Simona Bianca Pascu from Oracle’s legal team for their contribution.

The guide is now available to download in English, and Ukrainian.