Title: Romanian Government To Revamp Intelligence Services Structures  

Document Number: FBIS-EEU-2001-1116
Document Date: 16 Nov 2001
Sourceline: EUP20011116000143 Bucharest Ziua in Romanian 16 Nov 01 p 3 
Language: Romanian 
Subslug: Report by Radu Tudor: "The Country's Supreme Defense Council Has 
Given the Green Light for a Historic Initiative -- Nastase To Control the 
Intelligence Services" 


[FBIS Translated Text]     In the Form of an Inter-Ministry Cooperation 
Protocol, the Managers of the Intelligence Structures Will Be 
Periodically Summoned to Victoria Palace [headquarters of the Romanian 
Government], for the First Time 

    What was once just a rumor in the corridors of the intelligence 
services has become reality.   Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, through a 
remarkable political coup, has succeeded in a very important project -- 
the prime minister can now control the intelligence services.   According 
to post-December 1989 tradition, the prime minister was merely a consumer 
of notes, analyses, and reports from the intelligence services.   The SRI 
[Romanian Intelligence Service], SIE [Foreign Intelligence Service], and 
SPP [Guard and Protection Service] have been controlled by Cotroceni 
Palace [headquarters of the Romanian presidency] for the last 11 years.   
Other intelligence services -- the MI (UM [Military Unit] 0962) and the 
army's DGIA [Army Intelligence General Directorate] -- reported to the 
prime minister, because they are part of the functioning scheme of 
ministries (the MI [Interior Ministry] and the MApN [Ministry of National 
Defense]). 

    Government Control After 11 Years 

    Without considering this master move as a new phase in a virtual 
competition with the president [Ion Iliescu], we must note the absolute 
novelty in establishing Victoria Palace control over the intelligence 
services.   This is a first for the post-December 1989 period.   For 
these past 11 years the prime minister's office has had overwhelming 
economic and political control.   Now this power gets what it lacked: 
intelligence power. 

    In a meeting yesterday, the Country's Supreme Defense Council [CSAT] 
approved the inter-ministry cooperation protocol for managing crisis 
situations by creating the necessary functional framework to achieve 
intelligence exchanges and joint conduct of missions and tasks incumbent 
in institutions that have a role in crisis management. 

    This elegant phrasing means Victoria Palace will control the 
intelligence services whenever there is a crisis to manage, be it 
political, economic, or social.   There will be opportunities for the 
prime minister to summon the managers of the intelligence services to 
Victoria Palace, and to coordinate them according to his own 
administrative vision and political interests.   Of course, all will be 
strictly coordinated with the Presidential Administration...So Iliescu 
will no longer blame the press for fueling an inexistent conflict of 
interest between himself and Nastase. 

    End of the MApN-STS [Special Telecommunication Service] Battle 

    The CSAT has also decided another issue that has generated scandal, 
as MApN management had accused the STS of trying to gain control over 
Romania's strategic communications.   The CSAT approved rules for the 
organization and functioning of an inter-departmental commission to 
coordinate information technology and communications. 

    The proposal was presented by Tudor Tanase, STS director.   It says 
the chairman of the inter-departmental commission is the CSAT secretary, 
an idea some MApN representatives had fought very hard for. 

    Another important decision was to give the commission the power to 
regulate, license, and control cryptography, subordinated to the 
government.   This new institution is exceedingly important given its 
strategic implications. 

    The CSAT has also approved the organizational structures of the SRI 
and the SIE along the lines proposed by the directors of those 
institutions, Radu Timofte and Gheorghe Fulga, respectively. 

    Both services will focus more on anti-terrorism, and the SRI will 
expand its activity to economic counterespionage. 

    Timofte Described the New Structure and Powers of the Institution He 
Is in Charge of -- SRI's Divisions Will Be Replaced With Departments -- 
SRI's Organization Scheme Is a State Secret 

    At a press briefing held yesterday at SRI headquarters, Timofte 
described the new SRI structure and powers approved by the CSAT.   
According to him, the approved reorganization seeks to meet the following 
objectives: assume the challenges of information warfare, namely 
identifying and managing threats that are specific to information 
technology; reconsider and redefine the analytical component of SRI 
intelligence activities for national security, including the 
institutionalization of analytically identifying and assessing local and 
zonal security risks; and resize the main SRI components and regroup them 
into functional blocs defined by the activity and the logic of the 
generated information flow. 

    The Organization Scheme -- The Public version 

    These are the main functional, or department, blocs of the SRI (we 
must mention that the director used the generic names of the structures, 
that is, the ones open to the press, not those approved in the 
organization scheme, which is a state secret): 

    1.   Department for issues of counterespionage and trans-border 
threats. 

    2.   The inspectorate in charge of preventing and combating terrorism 
is a structure that will have the powers of a national anti-terrorist 
authority, according to a previous CSAT decision.   It will ensure the 
development [fundamentarea] and implementation of national programs and 
international cooperation in this field, generated by the recent 
evolution of terrorist activity at the global level.   The anti-terrorist 
inspectorate includes a directorate in charge of identifying and 
assessing terrorist threats and an anti-terrorist protection and 
intervention brigade.   It benefits from the logistic support of an air 
transport and airborne troop group. 

    3.   The office in charge of supervising state secrets and the 
directorate in charge of shipping state-secret mail. 

    4.   The department in charge of technical support and intelligence 
activity identifies illegal radio-electronic transmissions (radio 
counterespionage), communication, and information technology.   This 
department includes testing labs and other technical sources, as well as 
the production of technical means to obtain security information for 
protected objects. 

    The departments of the functional structures include the secretariat, 
legal office, human resources, personnel training and career counseling, 
database records, management of physical-financial resources and assets, 
health-social insurance, and internal security.   The directorate of 
integration and foreign relations will have a special group for links 
with non-governmental organizations, 

    The President's Security Adviser Is Happy -- Ioan Talpes Says 
Intelligence Services Are Conforming to Normality 

    Talpes, national security adviser to the president, said the CSAT 
approved at its meeting yesterday 2001-2004 SIE's and SRI's strategies, 
which seek to redistribute their staff according to the new challenges 
faced following the 11 September attacks in the United States.   Talpes 
emphasized that the new strategies mainly deal with fighting terrorism 
and relations with foreign intelligence services.   He noted that 
intelligence services all over the world have been mostly concerned with 
creating the means to prevent and retaliate against terrorism following 
11 September. 

    The national security adviser said Romania had to change the 
organization scheme of its intelligence services, to be able to act as a 
de facto NATO ally, a phrase used immediately after the terrorist attacks 
in the United States.   Talpes said he insisted on higher budget 
appropriations for national security and defense in the state budget for 
2002, and most of that was an increased budget for special services.   He 
expressed his hope that the intelligence services will get the money they 
need for restructuring when the budget is amended next year. 

    Talpes said there are some "reservations" about restructuring in the 
intelligence services, because departments that used to be "interesting" 
could lose some of their importance.   The presidential adviser said the 
measures taken by the CSAT at Thursday's [15 November] meeting were taken 
for "[the intelligence services] to conform to normality."   "No state 
that respects itself can fail to take measures to prevent threats," 
Talpes said.   He said that for now the existing global threats are 
concentrated in the United States, but "nobody in Europe excludes the 
possibility that Europe, too, will become a field for such actions."   
"This is about responsibility and assuring a certain credibility," Talpes 
added. 

[Description of Source: Bucharest Ziua in Romanian -- popular, privately 
owned daily; generally critical of the political establishment across the 
board]