Controversies around the national security bills, as they would give more power to intelligence services

The national security draft bills are on the table of the ruling coalition, according to G4Media, which says that the documents give increased powers to the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service. Those draft laws compel the population to cooperate with the intelligence services, at their request, and expand the list of threats to national security in areas such as health, education and even cultural heritage.

The drafts also show that SRI and SIE officers will be able to be investigated by specifically appointed prosecutors, and the SRI director is no longer required to submit activity reports to Parliament and can no longer be dismissed by the Legislature.

So far, the ruling Coalition leaders have remained silent on the national security bills, with PSD, PNL and UDMR avoiding any discussion about what the future package of laws should look like.

The chairman of the SRI Control Commission argues that the mandates of the heads of the secret services should be limited. “Once the Coalition has an agreement, we can decide on the opportunity of this package of laws. It doesn’t make sense to talk until then”, says the PNL spokesman, Ionuț Stroe. The deputy claims that he did not see the documents related to national security and that it is “premature” to give a stance.

Stroe states that the official form in which the laws are submitted must be seen, as the opinions from all the institutions show and how the package comes out of the Government.

The Liberal’s statement is similar to that of the PSD president, Marcel Ciolacu. “I am waiting for the whole package. The government must take on this. (…) When all the laws, all of them, will come to the Parliament promoted by the Government, then they will be discussed in the commission “, said Marcel Ciolacu, the president of the Chamber of Deputies.

In early May, Parliament decided to set up a special committee on national security laws. The commission will be led by PSD, but has not had a meeting since its establishment until now.

The draft laws on national security are crazy, USR deputy Stelian Ion, former Minister of Justice, told RFI. He says his party will propose in parliament to strengthen civilian control over the secret services.

The USR MP says the laws are ingredients of a possible disaster of Romanian democracy. “If these projects were masterminded in the melting pots of the secret services and not in the politicians’ offices, I think it would have been normal for them to be presented to the public, at least to all parliamentary parties (…). If we want in Romania, all private companies, citizens, civilians to be obliged to collaborate, to turn everyone into collaborators of the secret services, this just seems madness”.

In his opinion, “if we spread this all over Romania and put Romania at the mercy of the secret services, we will end up in a kind of secret police dictatorship, so to speak(…). We will emphasize, when these laws will be discussed in Parliament and I hope that they will be transmitted to all parties and that these reports will be published, we will propose from USR a package of measures to strengthen civilian control over these secret services ”.

In his turn, political scientist Stelian Ion told an interview to Libertatea daily that these draft laws represent a danger.

“The danger is high. They want us all to turn into informers. Mass media is the hope“, Stelian Tanase, said while underlining that all this is done with the consent and endorsement of President Iohannis.

“I think that this bill is an intervention of some groups from SRI, because there are as many parties as you want up there, in order to impose this harsh tendency of the services to bring the population under control”, says Stelian Tănase.

G4Media journalist Dan Tapalaga said in his turn: “No one disputes the need to modernize the legal framework. The services operate according to laws written 30 years ago. However, even in these exceptional conditions, with door-to-door warfare and hybrid attacks, it is imperative that we question the limits of the powers given to the services, to protect democratic balances and not to transfer all power to the hands of those who do not hold anyone accountable. for the way they exercise it and they were not even invested by vote to legitimately lead the state.”