Balkanalysis.com

By Elena Dragomir and Chris Deliso

Since February, Romania political observers have been intrigued to see what implications key leadership changes at the top of the country’s political-security establishment might have for other eventualities. What these shifts can tell us about the evolving Romanian power structure today thus remains a subject of interest for analysts local and foreign alike. Looked at in a certain context, these events may allow the opportunity for judgments about certain intelligence structural tendencies that can have real-world application.

Most such attention has centered on the Foreign Intelligence Service (in Romanian, Serviciul de Informaţii Externe, or SIE): its director since 2007, Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, was replaced on 8 February. However, rather than simply exit the political scene, the outgoing intelligence chief was promoted to the post of prime minister by President Traian Băsescu. Three weeks later, the president appointed a replacement at the SIE- the more low-profile, but much older Teodor Viorel Meleşcanu.

Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu: a Political Insider

Ungureanu, a former State Secretary and Foreign Minister, had most famously served as the head of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service from November 27, 2007 until February 8, 2012. (The structure and activities of this and the other Romanian security services were discussed in a Balkanalysis.com report of April 2011).

During his SIE tenure, Ungureanu was ostensibly non-partisan and still claims to be an independent. Yet earlier this month, he told Romanian media that he was open to joining a political party in future and would like to continue in government to contest November 2012 elections.

Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu is a man of broad academic and political experience. According to his official Curriculum Vitae, posted on the government’s website, the new prime minister was born on 22 September 1968 in Iaşi, and is married with one child. He developed certain international connections early on, receiving in 1993 a Master’s Degree from the Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies at St. Cross College, University of Oxford. Later, in 2004, he received a PhD from the Faculty of History at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iaşi. Between 1992 and 1998, he was a teaching assistant at the Faculty of History, at the same university in Iaşi, and since 2007 has served as a professor there. Ungureanu has also published a number of history books.

Based on this background and relative youth, it would seem unusual that such a figure would advance so rapidly into the highest levels of political and security administration in a fairly large country like Romania. Yet in the interim, Ungureanu has been active in politics and diplomacy, primarily involved with the National Liberal Party (PNL) and often mentioned in Romanian media as a close supporter of President Băsescu, who again had appointed Ungureanu to the SIE post in November 2007 (this appointment was confirmed by the Parliament in the following month).

Ungureanu began his diplomatic career in 1998, between December 2004 and March 2007 serving as Romania’s Minister for Foreign Affairs. During this period, he was a member of the National Liberal Party but after leaving the MFA in 2007 claimed to have ‘suspended’ his membership in the party. More recently, Crin Antonescu, the president of the PNL declared that Ungureanu does not represent it in the new government.

Another professional experience which was used to defend Ungureanu’s fitness for the SIE job was his brief position as deputy coordinator of the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), a Vienna-based multinational entity formed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the OSCE. On its website, SECI acknowledges that “it relies on a dense network of affiliations and collaborators through which it further contributes to the regional efforts for sustainable development and integration and the bridging of remaining obstacles to cooperation and development in South East Europe.”

The SECI Center (now dubbed SELEC) is based in Bucharest, however, and is charged primarily with fighting organized crime and illegal trafficking. SECI/SELEC is well known as the prime venue in Romania where foreign law enforcement and intelligence specialists from a variety of countries can compare notes. In an important interview with Ungureanu that will be discussed below, he stated that while at SECI – that is, well before becoming SIE chief – he did “have access to confidential information through the representatives of the states involved,” but however “was not involved operationally.” He rather characterized his experience and SIE tenure as “managerial” in nature.

Unclear Events Pointed Out in the Media

A number of hazy events in recent years have led rival politicians and anti-Băsescu media to allege Ungureanu of having operated on the president’s behalf from 2007-2012, leading some critics to argue for a misuse of the SIE for political reasons. This has had to do both with controlling access to information and allegations of election influencing.

First, for readers who may not be aware of the media-political relationships in Romania, some context here will be useful as it may have implications for critical evaluation of the sources. Although the following study draws quite considerably on the direct commentary of the main persons discussed, a number of important secondary sources come from media such as the newspaper Jurnalul National, which is very anti-Băsescu/PNL and anti-PDL (Democratic Liberal Party). However, this newspaper, a holding of Intact Media Group (founded by wealthy businessman and Conservative Party senator Dan Voiculescu), also publishes articles critical to the opposition.

For years now, the PDL and PNL/Băsescu have accused Jurnalul National and Antena 3 TV (another Intact Media Group holding) of following the directives of Voiculescu, which they deny. Băsescu is in a continuous war with these media companies and with the journalists in general.

Generally, Romanian media does not discuss these problems much, with very few exceptions. There have been cases of journalists dismissed for their anti-Băsescu or anti-PDL/anti-government attitude. The most notorious examples were Oana Stancu, Adrian Ursu and Ravan Dumitrescu, who were dismissed from Realitatea TV- and later hired by Antena 3. This is probably the only domestic television channel critical of the people in power right now. For her part, Oana Stancu writes now in Jurnalul National. A very limited discussion about the freedom of media can be found in a January 2012 report from the European Journalism Centre. In the big picture, the freedom of media and alliance of media discussion is very complicated and confusing, with accusations and counter-accusations from each part, all of which are very hard to prove.

The first case relevant to the present study (which occurred in 2007, but even before Ungureanu was promoted to the SIE) in which he was allegedly involved, reported Ziare, was the ‘scandal’ of two Romanian workers accused of espionage and arrested in Iraq. On February 2, 2007, then-Prime Minister Călin Popescu Tăriceanu (also of the National Liberal Party) asked Ungureanu to resign from the MFA; Tăriceanu was angry that he had only found out about the arrests through the media (not to mention three months after the fact), whereas President Băsescu had been informed immediately and in private. Many in the media have thus considered that Ungureanu was the ‘man of Băsescu’, as Revista 22 put it recently.

Some Romanian media have followed the same line of reasoning to argue that ‘Traian Băsescu is leading Romania through the secret services,’ as Gandul.info put it on 6 February, when Ungureanu was given the nod by President Băsescu to form the new government. Over the next few days Ungureanu negotiated the future composition of the cabinet with the political parties- only officially resigning his SIE post on 8 February. Many critical politicians and journalists argued that it was actually against the law for a secret service director to simultaneously become politically active in forming a government.

Obviously, the new prime minister does not share these negative opinions about himself- in a television interview of 2010 that will be discussed below, he vehemently denied politicization of the SIE by the president as common conspiracy theorizing. Still, in the important HotNews interview discussed in the following section, he does make a comment that is quite interesting on this point. “When I took over the foreign affairs portfolio I already had experience as state secretary and had already been involved in a political and diplomatic activity that had sometimes and somehow got connections with the activity of the special services,” he said in 2009. “Taking this into account as well as my management role at the helm of this institution, the question of [gaining leaders’] trust has never been raised.”

There were a couple of other SIE-related ‘scandals’ from the time of Ungureanu’s directorship. One involved the results of the last presidential elections (2009). Critical media have since voiced suspicions of illegal SIE involvement in the campaign of Traian Băsescu, interestingly, within the Romanian communities abroad). However, the alleged use and misuse of these diaspora groups was not sufficiently clarified and remains a subject of unresolved interest.

The Syrian Affair

A second affair that predates Ungureanu’s SIE career – but that reportedly had an espionage element – was the Omar Hayssam scandal, which was widely discussed in the Romanian and even international media.  This Syrian-born financier active in Romania since having been a student in the Communist days was sentenced by a Romanian court (in absentia) to 20 years’ jail time for allegedly plotting the 2005 kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Iraq. According to a website covering Romanian special forces, the journalists were liberated by the SIE’s elite, ultra-secret counter-terrorism group. According to the website, the group was created in 1998 and trained by the US Delta Force and consists of 12-15 men.

The journalists were held as prisoners for almost two months, with their Iraqi captors unsuccessfully demanding that Romania withdraw its troops from the country. When Hayssam was soon arrested in Bucharest, the truth of the matter came out: rather than being a kidnapping with political or religious motivations, it was uncovered as having actually been an opportunistic stunt.

According to later reports, the Syrian had hoped to shield himself against looming criminal charges, by surreptitiously kidnapping the journalists and then interceding to win their release, presumably thus becoming a public hero. However, after this plot was discovered, the Syrian nonetheless escaped the country following temporary home leave in July 2006- an embarrassment which forced the resignation of Gheorghe Fulga, the SIE chief at the time, reported Reuters.

On July 21, 2006, Jurnalul National disclosed the details of the internal political deliberating that in an instant transformed the security leadership in the country, due to the Hayssam scandal. After a three-hour meeting with President Băsescu, Gheorghe Fulga (who had directed the SIE since February 2001), Radu Timofte, director of the SRI domestic intelligence service (also since February 2001) and Virgil Ardelean, director of the DGIPI criminal intelligence service since 1998 all resigned. However, Prime Minister Tăriceanu did not accept the resignation of Ardelean, who remained in office until 2007.

On the surface, it was this tumultuous case that paved the way for Ungureanu, at that time minister of foreign affairs, to take over at the SIE- though there was an eight–month period of indecision in which General Silviu Predoiu, Claudiu Saftoiu, and then Predoiu again served as interim directors. (At the moment, Predoiu has returned as deputy director). However, Ungureanu may have already had an intelligence-related role in the Hayssam affair. In fact, Ziua recently reported that in 2006 Ungureanu intervened on behalf of a lawyer who was himself representing ‘an Israeli lobby group,’ to be allowed to talk several times with Hayssam in his jail cell, “without even obtaining the approval of the case prosecutor.”

The article draws on the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Nicolae Ulieru, “one of the closest persons to Virgil Măgureanu and the longest serving Spokesman for the SRI.” (Măgureanu himself had been SRI chief from 1990-1997 and was before that on the military tribunal that sentenced the Ceaușescus to death). In the article, Ulieru contended that he had two years earlier “exposed” the plan of President Băsescu to eventually form a PNL-PDL government under Ungureanu, and that “this is the reason why Mihai Razvan Ungureanu accepted the position of Head of SIE in 2007, moving from PNL to the party once run by Traian Băsescu.”

Ulieru comments in the article on a very murky incident that allegedly took place in Iasi, and involved the interference of a foreign intelligence service in the dismissal of an SRI officer. The Ziua article concludes by noting that “the episode mentioned above confirms that Mr. Ungureanu belongs to a foreign intelligence service. Mr. Ulieru also offered to give all the information items he holds in front of a Parliament Commission.” In the article, the SRI colonel implied that it was strange for such a relatively young politician to serve in turns as foreign minister, SIE chief, and prime minister. Whatever the truth of the matter may be, the feud may be indicative of competition (as will be noted in another case below) between the SIE and SRI, as well as between different generations of SIE leadership and staff, something that is endemic and not unnatural in most countries with similarly structured security bodies.

Oil, the Austrians, Close Connections and ‘National Security’ in the Black Sea

The new Romanian prime minister has not had a very easy time of it lately, with hostile media also accusing him of conflict of interests due to his wife’s relations with OMV Petrom, the biggest oil company in Romania, and a subsidiary of the OMV Group which, like the SECI entity he used to head, is based in Austria. The business strategies of the parent company are far more significant for regional business and political interests than simple nepotism allegations, however.

In December 2007, a few days after Ungureanu became director of the SIE, his wife, Daniela (an anesthesiologist by training) became a member of the Board of Directors of Petromed Solutions, a firm belonging to OMV Petrom. According to Jurnalul National, Daniela Ungureanu received 225,000 euros (about 7,000 euros per month) between 2009 and 2011 from Petromed.

The apparent issue with this was that Mr Ungureanu made no specification regarding this affair in his declarations of interests during his tenure as intelligence chief. In February-March 2012, however, Ungureanu declared that his wife was a ‘medical consultant’ for Petromed, involved in a ‘social project’ of the company. At the same time, however, OMV Petrom representatives, responding to a clarification request from Jurnalul National said that she is a member of the board of directors of Petromed.

In March 2012 testimony reported by Jurnalul National, Ungureanu still claimed that there is no conflict of interests between his former position as SIE director, or his current position as prime minister and his wife’s position at Petromed. Critics from media, politics or the civic society like Grupul de Investigativi Politice have argued otherwise, though. Daniela Ungureanu is still under contract with the oil company, while the Romanian government is running negotiations with Petrom on a broad range of issues, reported Jurnalul National on 13 March.

Romanian journalists Oana Stancu and Daniel Ionascu have argued that this is a matter of ‘national security’ as OMV and Exxon are prospecting in the Black Sea, in the search for natural gas. Their representatives declared that deposits of 42 to 84 bn cubic meters of natural gas have already been identified; this equals three to six times the annual consumption of Romania. Such an energy related issue naturally comes within the purview of the SIE, the two journalists write.

Moreover, OMV Petrom has been trying for years now to export the gas extracted from Romania, which would make Romania 80% dependent on the very expensive Russian gas. This problem (among others related to OMV Petrom) has again to be addressed by the Romanian government – this time lead by Ungureanu. This is more than conflict of interests, it is a matter of national security, the two journalists claim.

New SIE Structures and Priorities Developed During the Ungureanu Period

While the new prime minister’s official CV (as of March 2012) does not mention anything about his mandate as head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, insights into his priorities, mindset, and perceptions and goals of intelligence work can be gleaned from other official sources. These include press communications from the SIE and, most helpfully, a March 2009 interview with the former director himself for HotNews – an interview which is preserved on the SIE website – and a transcript of a three-way 2010 interview for B1 TV, also carried on the SIE website. (One can say what one wants about the particularities, but at very least when it comes to providing such access to testimony from intelligence chiefs, Romania seems to be far ahead of all its Balkan neighbors).

The composite picture that emerges from these interviews is of an individual who is supremely confident, well-spoken if sometimes evasive, but who can be tempted to refer to the possession of privileged knowledge as a sort of qualitative personal advantage over other human beings.

In the first interview from 2009, journalist Vlad Mixich pressed the then-SIE director on a range of issues, resulting in one of the fuller pictures we have of contemporary Romanian intelligence from one of its chief practitioners. Averring that with recent reforms the SIE has “turned from a Dacia into a Rolls-Royce,” Ungureanu takes pains to point out that despite Romanian popular imagination, the service today is not comparable to the sinister Securitate of the old Communist regime, as the trajectory of NATO and EU reform processes has generally increased transparency, democratization and parliamentary oversight.

In the interview, Ungureanu discussed the SIE’s “clearly outlined competence in foreign intelligence-gathering” which do not involve political decision-making. At the same time, however, “the outcome of SIE’s work should be traceable in political strategies,” the director stated.

In his conception, his own SIE leadership does not necessitate “in-depth knowledge of all the intricacies of an operation,” though proper management  does require an increase in professional performance, “best use of available human, logistical, financial, credibility and PR resources and, last but not least, correctly [conveying of] information to the relevant decision-makers that are allowed by law to receive it and make best use of it.”

Aside from expressing the expected talking points about transparency, reform, and no domestic spying, Ungureanu added several comments that are quite intriguing. First was his rather optimistic and confident view of the SIE’s capacities – stating that intelligence is being collected “anyhow, anytime [and] anywhere,” while agreeing with the interviewer that a good motto for the service would be that “the end justifies the means.” In this robust worldview, SIE work is one of the “most vivid” ways a Romanian can express his or her patriotism- “to help your country irrespective of the context and risks.”

Ungureanu also characterized the SIE’s reform path since 1990 as having been characterized by both small steps, and occasionally “spectacular leaps,” largely depending on human resources and the orientation of political decision-makers during that period. One key moment was 2002, when Romania’s NATO application was approved, something that “changed Romania’s security paradigm in all its implications: ranging from the structure of the Ministry of Defense to the structure of the special services.”

Orientation Shifts to a Network Approach, and Acknowledgement of Powerful Allies and Interests

This had far-reaching implications, stated Ungureanu: “this turn in paradigm triggered a radical structural overhaul of the SIE in its entirety, and I do not mean the personnel alone, but also the structure, the scope, and the development strategies – i.e. everything an institution is supposed to mean.” The main goal of the reforms was to make Romanian intelligence services compatible to those of NATO partner countries; this apparently involved changes in structure, reflexes and mentality. Making the SIE NATO-compatible meant “deconstructing and reconstructing the service… along the lines of a mixed Western pattern,” and with significant staff turnover.

One of the interesting themes Ungureanu singled out was the change from a past known for its “autarchic regime” (e.g., the Securitate) towards one that is a “family” or “network-based” structure characterized by partnerships and mutual allied support. Romania thus became “part of a network where each component has a specificity and obvious geographically-based competences, and uses resources depending on national and allied policies.”

This is amplified in the second, 2010 television interview in which Ungureanu expanded upon his view of Romania’s strategic value and of its newfound ‘interest’ among outside players. In the interview, he makes a point of noting the excellent relations with NATO-states, complements from the US ambassador, and his own meeting in Romania with then-CIA chief Leon Panetta.

In the interview, Ungureanu also maintains that “Romania, by virtue of her current geopolitical status, is interesting to any spy institution from states that have an undisguised, strategic interest in the EU, the North Atlantic Alliance, Southeast Europe or the Black Sea area. In other words, small histories that no longer stir the interest of the media in other states because they have repeated on and on… as Romania acquires more geopolitical weight, she obviously attracts more attention of spy services. In some cases, these things are also covered by the media. In most cases, the fight is waged in the unseen areas of society.”

It is perhaps interesting that this tangent in the discussion was prompted by comments from the journalists about the now infamous case of Russian spies like Anna Chapman expelled from the US and, something that is now even more striking due to recent embarrassing events- comments made by George Friedman, the head of Stratfor. The leader of the self-proclaimed global intelligence provider (amusingly described by Ungureanu as being a “geopolitical traveller”) had apparently called on Romania in a local media interview to “become dangerous.” In the interview, the SIE chief related that he understood this friendly advice more in the sense of building a strong military than a strong intelligence service. In any case, the passage does indicate that the country’s admirers and would-be intelligence advisors are not limited to governmental officials.

He also warns of the deleterious effects budget cuts would have on the SIE’s abilities, and perhaps for this reason plays up the agency’s alleged overall importance. As such, when asked about the expanding interests of the SIE internationally, Ungureanu adds that “there are some states that have become interesting to the SIE because of their own policies, their own lists of national priority interests, their own affinities or partnerships, depending on what everyone builds – closer or farther to home.”

“However,” he adds, “there is a level of cooperation between services, even though in some cases the dialogue is harsher. But there are some fields where our interests are necessarily common”- these include organized crime, terrorism and human trafficking. When asked whether Romania cooperates with Russia too in these areas, Ungureanu confirms this but does not state, when prodded whether he has ever met his Russian counterpart. This is interesting in that it implies in Romania there might still be something taboo or untowards about any such relationship, owing to the Communist past.

Changes in Recruitment and Training Practices, Restrictions and Dangers

The recruitment trends and restrictions witnessed by Ungureanu prior to and during his tenure are also of interest for the casual observer. In the first interview from 2009, he notes that “there are no prodigies in espionage, ones that would pop up straight from universities,” and reiterates that risk is emphasized over reward to potential recruits, before getting down to a number: the goal of the SIE being “to choose eight people out of one thousand; and in the end to have only five left, after these eight have gone through the rigours of specialized training.”

Regarding recruitment, the former director went on to enumerate the qualities the SIE is apparently looking for, qualities “that develop rather with adult age than in restless youth,” and which include intelligence, adaptability to any context and “a quite different mindset, particular brains and particular strength necessary for one to work abroad under several aliases.” Further, he cautioned that there is an “ethical benchmark” candidates should keep in mind, and that is “a significant curb [on] individual liberties: ranging from the freedom of circulation to the free choice of feelings, free dialogue and free will. It is a quasi military discipline where the rules are non-negotiable.” All of these are subservient, he maintains, to “national interest.”

Ungureanu added another comment that offers further intriguing insight into the SIE’s particular worldview. He noted that the job “sorts out values very well, exactly because the professionalism indicator – i.e.the quality of the information – is measurable. You do not measure information; you measure the quality of information and its real effect, its ability to predict and understandability. When you follow such precise criteria you can almost surgically cut between the very best, the average and the improvable [candidates]. With the specification that the improvable have got a chance because you never know what or whom you may run into.”

In the 2009 interview, Ungureanu also states his confidence in an “intelligence elite” carrying out training and that the existence of this is in some way impervious to politicization.  As of 2009, he states that “we have a lot of young people in the apparatus” of collecting information from abroad and turning “quantitative information into quality intelligence.” With “a lot” of young Romanians apparently having received “extensive and serious experience abroad” as of 2009, “we are the ones providing recruitment and foreign operational expertise to other partners in NATO.” Ungureanu finally characterized the SIE as a ‘powerful’ intelligence service.

In the 2010 television interview, he adds more details about the professional restrictions of SIE agents during and after their career. This commentary develops from questions about economics and budget cuts- the implied question being how they could affect morale and integrity.

Ungureanu notes that SIE employees’ status as state workers means their wages depend on levels of professionalism and competence, but differs from other civil servants in that they are “special”- and “not only because they conduct a totally different activity that no one else in the Romanian state does, i.e. espionage, but also because, at the beginning of his or her contract and until his or her contract terminates, each employee is subject to a whole series of restrictions that no other employee of the Romanian state must endure.”

These restrictions include having no other jobs or engagements and that “absolutely everything related to his or her private life is subject to the corporate regulations,” including any association with foreign and sometimes even Romanian citizens. After retirement, these people “have to make a pledge that everything they know can never and shall never be disclosed… they have no chance of having a business telephone, a business car, a holiday bonus, Easter holiday, a place to live provided by the Service – no chance at all.”

Ungureanu appears to have been emphasizing this Spartan existence in reference to rationalizing against budget cuts; that they “should be adjusted to the restrictions that special categories of employees of the Romanian state must endure on a voluntary basis once they signed a contract with the state.” The other argument for this (not specifically expressed) is that underpaid employees represent a serious potential liability as they become prey to better-funded foreign competitors and thus drive up the costs of internal counterintelligence.

Indeed, when asked whether budget cuts have led to “HR problems,” Ungureanu replied that the “corporate culture” of the SIE is somehow unique among other Romanian services, providing its own morale. As in the 2009 interview, he reiterates that only about eight of 1,000 candidates are accepted, and that the SIE receives “about 2,000 applications a year.” The perceived motivating factor of these young recruits is said to be “patriotism” with other “professional incentives” being that the work is “extremely risky, full of danger for one’s own life, but it is very interesting, very, very interesting.” Finally, he maintains that the professional skills learned by SIE men and women make them employable in other capacities after retirement.

There is a dark side, however. Ungureanu amplifies this by attesting that during his tenure an undisclosed number of Romanian spies were assassinated- contrasting the average MFA employee’s involvement with “abstract things” to the SIE officer’s engagement with “people.” When the SIE agent is active abroad, “he is a criminal outside the Romanian borders. That’s the risk.”

The broad sweep of the former director’s rhetoric in the two interviews thus indicates that the Romanian agency has indeed taken a new higher profile, with the repeated “but few are chosen” type quips meant to resonate romantically in the broader social discourse, as well as to serve as a sort of fundraising tool, perhaps.

New SIE Outreach- with Academia

New approaches to recruitment with foreign influence have been indicated in other official documentation. Towards the end of Ungureanu ‘s mandate, a February 2011 press release from the SIE seemed to indicate again the new experience of a network-oriented approach drawing on allied practices, as had been voiced by the director two years earlier.

The press release chronicled the signing of a protocol of cooperation between the SIE and the University of Bucharest, granting MA students from the university the chance to undertake an “OSINT internship programme” which apparently would provide te chance “to acquire practical experience – which supplements the experience of university studies – in a field of activity reserved for elite professionals.”

Billed as a first for Romania, this seems most closely to be a domestic adaptation of certain post-9/11 ‘synergies’ formed typically in the US and Great Britain in the suddenly lucrative field of ‘intelligence studies.’ The new cooperation of state security and academia may develop in both more formal ways, but also for patronage, entitlement and as part of a relatively new business model in the Western world. It is a low-risk, high-reward model, with ‘OSINT’ practice being safe, straightforward and perhaps informative to higher-ups seeking to observe cognitive skills of young potential recruits (before they know that they might be recruits).

According to the press release, the SIE’s two annual internship programmes would take place in the periods of June-July and July-August, and be limited to four students who have finished “the first year of their MA programme in law, philosophy, history, journalism, foreign languages and literatures, political sciences, communication sciences, and who are Romanian citizens and residents having no criminal record, and having received BA graduation exam marks of over 8.50, and MA entrance exam marks of over 8.50. Preference would be given to “those MA students who are interested in the fields of geo-politics and international relations [and who] have strategic thinking skills and speak foreign languages.”

Beginning of a New Era: The SIE’s New Director, Teodor Viorel Meleşcanu

On 28 February 2012, Teodor Viorel Meleşcanu took over as director of the SIE.  His official, and brief CV (see page 6) is provided by the webpage of the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament, though the SIE website now also has one for him and his deputies as well here (under ‘Leadership’). The new director is decidedly more ‘old-school’ than his predecessor. Born in 1941, Meleşcanu graduated in 1964 from the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest, in 1973 obtaining a PhD in political science and international law from the University of Geneva. He is also a professor at the University of Bucharest and published many books dealing with topics concerning international law and diplomacy.

In 1966 he started his diplomatic career at the ministry of foreign affairs. Between1992-1996 Meleşcanu was minister of foreign affairs, while between 2007 and 2008 he served as minister of defense. He was also three times elected as senator, as a candidate of the National Liberal Party.

Teodor Meleşcanu was an important member of the PNL until President Băsescu designated him director of the SIE in February 2012. Accepting Băsescu’s proposal, Meleşcanu declared his suspension from the PNL and its activities. Yet while the SIE has a new director, the retention or reactivation of certain ‘old hands’ indicates that there will be no major policy changes or reorientations from the top.

Still, Meleşcanu’s designation for SIE generated a small political crisis, as Gandul.info reported on February 28^th. Critical politicians and journalists alike argued that through this move, Băsescu was seeking to strike once more against the political opposition. In his first speech given as head of the SIE, Meleşcanu declared that “the main objective [of Romania] is the correct organization of the local and parliamentary elections” and that “I hope that there are the necessary means to prepare the elections.” In light of the many national and international security issues going on all the time, the preoccupation of the new director of the SIE with elections was considered by many in Romania at very least to be not a mix-up of priorities, or even suspicious.

Meleşcanu was often accused (without presenting any proof, though) of having been an officer of the communist secret service, Securitate. Hotnews.ro recalls that Mihai Răceanu, a former diplomat in Ceauşecu’s time, argued in his book Infern, 1989 that Meleşcanu was an undercover officer of the Securitate: oddly enough, President Băsescu himself formulated such an accusation against Meleşcanu 12 years ago.

On 28 February, Meleşcanu again rejected the accusations that he had worked for the secret services before or after 1989. On the same day, he declared that the SIE’s other priority now is to attract EU money for Romania- another interesting goal for an intelligence service, but one not entirely dissimilar from the objectives hinted at by his predecessor.

While no proof has ever been forwarded about Communist collaborations, and while it may no longer even be relevant, the Romanian parliament is apparently still taking a keen interest in housekeeping matters relating to it. On 28 February 2012, the parliament adopted – without the participation of the opposition – a law on lustration. The timing of the bill and its special provisions have correlations with the recent game of musical chairs at the SIE, it turns out.

According to the initial text of the law the former leaders of the Union of the Communist Youth and the former diplomats of the communist regime could not be appointed in public positions for five years from the adoption of the law. On 28 February, though, Mircea Toader (Liberal Democratic Party) asked his fellow deputies to amend the text of the lustration law.

According to the accepted amendments Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu (former alternate member of the Central Committee of the Union of the Communist Youth) and Meleşcanu (former diplomat of the communist regime) no longer come under the law and its restrictions. For his part, Ungureanu has declared it ridiculous that his nominal relationship with the Communist youth could have any significance, considering his young age at the time.

Analysis: Reforms, Reorientation, a Regional Role

It is abundantly clear from the above study that since 1990 the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service has made real reforms and steered a new course, tempered by the new political system realities in the country and in the world.

It is also clear that it continues to aspire, along with other Romanian security agencies, to more prestigious positions in the region and wider world. In the recent past, this has involved priority placement of representatives at international, NATO-related intelligence events, particularly when it is known in advance that representatives of ‘rival’ domestic agencies will also be present, even when their presence has made no difference whatsoever in terms of contributing to discussions, and even despite occasional violations of the non-disclosure of SIE employment clause to foreigners. And this is not merely an observation on the part of the authors, but based on the filtered testimony of Western intelligence officials who have watched the dynamic play out closely over time.

Speaking of the Balkan region in particular, it is clear that Romania sees itself as being one of the more important and engaged countries for the future of the region, particularly with the imminent draw-down in size of Western aid missions and even the closure or reduction of Western diplomatic missions in the region- the curse of too much peace, apparently.

Yet significantly, this is part of the reason why Romania has tried so hard to build trust among NATO allies- a more active role in its greater backyard can also mean millions of euros in executable project funds and related consulting work through its ministries and allied NGOs and ethnic groups. Within the next decade this new interest, should it continue, may bring Romania into competition with Turkey. Although this is a competition Romania cannot win, serving the function of just “being there” as a Western surrogate might well be used by Bucharest to try and curry favor in the never-ending game of Balkan patronage and prestige.

Current Business/Political Events: Copper, Gold and Natural Gas

There are currently several large projects or planned projects in the commodities and energy fields (in addition to the above-mentioned OMV dealings) which might be discussed, as they are interesting in themselves and since they might bear some sort of relevance in the context of intelligence activities from both the SIE and foreign countries in or relating to Romania.

The first, brought up by Ziua on February 11, 2012, discusses the very controversial Rosia Montana gold mining project in Transylvania on the Hungarian border, which has been put off due to environmental concerns about cyanide drilling, raised by a wide variety of environmental and citizen groups determined not to see a repeat of the massive cyanide spill that occurred on a similar project in Baia Mare in 2000, affecting three countries. Not only big money but EU politics and international relations are at stake, as well.

The newspaper claims that the current project is strongly supported by President Băsescu, “who developed a true obsession for it, [and] is supposed now to be started again by Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, following a lack of courage of the former PM to do it.”

Further, reads Ziua, the president has told Ungureanu that this project of the Rosia Montana Gold Corporation Company in the Apuseni Mountains “should become a Government priority.” In fact, the paper notes, President Băsescu specifically invoked the need to start mining at Ungureanu’s invocation ceremony, stating that it would add jobs and wealth for the country in general. A Canada-based mining company, Gabriel Resources, owns Rosia Montana.

This company had previously been united with another, now sister company, London-based European Goldfields, which invests in gold mines in Greece, Romania and Turkey. The company characterizes its Certej mine (owned through subsidiary Deva Gold since 2006, after privatization at the time of EU membership) as “located in the ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ area of the Apuseni Mountains of Transylvania in Western Romania.” The perception of such a promised land of mineral wealth running across a wide swathe of western Romania is what makes environmentalists nervous about the greater ambitions international conglomerates have for exploiting their country. (It is also a bit ironic since Romania is currently advertising its tourism offerings on international television under the slogan of ‘explore the Carpathian garden’).

Ungureanu and his government are now also taking heat over the planned sale of a copper mining company, CupruMin Abrud. The state had taken over the company in 2009 from over the EnergoMineral group, but soon terminated the privatization plans, “due to the sudden decline in the price of copper on international markets,” reported Jurnalul National on 28 March. The company’s assets reportedly represent “60% of Romania’s reserves of copper, a deposit evaluated at 20 billion dollars.” According to Jurnalul National, the Romanian government sold CupruMin Abrud to another Canada-based company, Roman Copper Corporation for 200 million euros.

In a press release of 30 March, this company and its ultimate owner, BayFront Capital Partners, announced that it was “excited” to be involved with the Rosia Poieni copper mine. BayFront partner Mike Curtis stated that “we are delighted with our acquisition of Cupru Min through an open, transparent auction process,” characterizing it as “one of Romania’s most prestigious mining projects… [we] will bring top level expertise and resources to realize Cupru Min’s full potential.”

The unlisted and little-known Canadian company, which seems to have been created specifically for the Romanian operation by BayFront, beat out three competitors, including a major player from Australia, OZ Minerals. However, Andrew Topf of Mining.Com relates the Australian view that OZ “may have bigger fish to fry” than the Romanian company, which does not approach the importance of its major holdings worldwide.

According to both foreign and Romanian media, the privatization of the mining company was part of the conditions of Romania’s EU membership in 2006. “Roman Copper has a letter of guarantee acceptable to Eximbank, and the contract will be signed Cuprumin takeover within ten days,” reported Jurnalul National, contrasting this 200.77-million-euro privatization – an amount “nearly four times more than originally requested” – to the continued failure to privatize Electrica bănet South, despite that “Italy’s Enel have raised over 800 million.” The newspaper quotes sources who say that “the Romanian state authorities were forced [to privatize] by the International Monetary Fund.” (The IMF representative in Bucharest denied this on a television program). For his part, Ungureanu has stated that the sale of a bankrupt state company for four times its asking price indicates a financial coup and positive sign for the country.

As with the gold mine, the Rosia Poieni copper mine (which geologists also believe to contain gold) has also been criticized by environmentalists for its harmful effects on the natural world.  This has included recent protests in front of the Ministry of Economy. Vladan Florin, the head of the Office of State Ownership and Privatization in Industry (OPSPI), said recently in answer to these concerns that Roman Copper will need to invest 92 million euros, and to solve environmental problems because its waters, rich in heavy metals from the tailings pond, represent “a natural sulfuric acid factory,” said the Jurnalul National report. Nevertheless, Iulian Iancu, Chairman of the Industries of the Chamber of Deputies, characterized the tender as illegal because the necessary environmental permits had expired on December 31, 2011, “and have not been renewed because the company did not comply.”

Finally, another foreign investment project now causing protest from government opponents is the Romanian government’s decision on 29 March to allow Chevron to search for shale gas near Constanta; the Bulgarian government had previously refused the same request and plans to prevent all such projects over environmental objections. However, the Romanian government played the argument that if Romanian gas runs out (after 10 years), the country would become more dependent on Russian gas. This opens a wider geopolitical discussion with more actors and can be used to strengthen Bucharest’s hand- even though the government-supported plan of OMV’s increased exports would result in the same dependency, ironically.

Yet even here, fast-paced developments on the political scene seem to have foiled the Ungureanu government’s plans, and rattled the American investor. In response to a series of broadcasts of Antena 3 TV, Chevron Romania announced on the evening of 1 April that it is suspending exploitation of shale gas in Romania for the rest of 2012. According to the station, the Chevron representatives also stated that their company has ‘nothing against’ the declassification of the contract made between itself and the Romanian government in this respect. Therefore, it was implied that not Chevron, but the Romanian government, seeks to hide the stipulations of the contract from the public.

The political opposition, through the voice of Victor Ponta, one of the leaders of the Social Liberal Union (USL), in a press conference on April 1^st accused Prime Minister Ungureanu of “giving away the resources of the national patrimony,” adding that “the mandate of the Ungureanu government has nothing to do with the interests of Romania nor, it seems, with the party interests of PDL, UNPR or UDMR either, but with interests that are foreign from Romania.” By acting ‘conspiratorially,’ Ponta declared, the prime minister “is giving away the natural and energetic resources” of the state, reported Adevarul.ro.

Intrigue Continues on the Security Leadership Front

A final interesting development involves more apparent consolidation of control atop other branches of the Romanian security apparatus. On 29 March, Romania’s MediaFax “quoted official sources” as saying the DGIPI Criminal Intelligence Director, Cristian Gheorghe Latcau, is being replaced. (Latcau had served as DGIPI head since Dec 22, 2010, appointed by former interior minister Traian Igas).

 

“According to Democrat-Liberal sources quoted by HotNews.ro, Premier Mihai Razvan Unugureanu is going to appoint Chief Commissary Mihai Pintilei in Latcau’s place. Pintilei is the head of the Traffic Police Department of the Police Inspectorate in Iasi, the native city of Premier Ungureanu.” However, this move could backfire, the report continues, as Ungureanu’s decision “reportedly sparked discontent in Democrat-Liberal quarters given Pintilei’s lack of experience in the intelligence field.”

Hypothetical Approaches for the Study of Intelligence Activity

The foregoing breakdown of priorities and SIE philosophy does lend itself to a favorable view of the agency and its reforms, but the facts of an alienated parliament and apparently custom-tailored laws indicate that politicization at least at upper levels is still a factor and that volatility will remain during periodic swings in power.

Still, the whole discussion of issues like lustration, and the constant framing of intelligence issues against the abuses of the Securitate, may in fact be a smokescreen, obscuring more relevant and significant dynamics. While the media sees symmetries in things like lustration law exclusions, the realities of day-to-day politics and big business – often depicted as ‘national interests’ – may have more relevance. As such, it may be more profitable therefore to ask: if the intelligence service were to indeed relapse into political, non-transparent and profiteering practices, where would the signs of such activity be?

In his 2009 interview, the current prime minister and former SIE chief noted how clearly quality intelligence could be measured; the same may be true for the professionalism and apolitical nature of an intelligence agency. An interesting litmus test for the current example could theoretically involve a contentious issue

That said, any assessment of present or future abuse of SIE mandate for a specific politico-economic purpose, such as this one is purported to be, would have to consider means, reach and use value. But also, if as Ungureanu stated, ‘patriotism’ and protecting ‘national interests’ should be key motivators for their officers, other practices as related below could be looked out for.

An auditor would firstly seek to learn whether any senior intelligence officials carried over from the different mandates have any particular expertise or interest in geology or rock science. An analysis would also seek to confirm whether SIE-related assets are in a position to either learn about or influence environmental rulings on cyanide drilling being deliberated by the EU and possibly other law-issuing entities, and relationships with public relations groups trying to make the project acceptable to the public on the local and international levels.

An investigation would also try to pinpoint and plot out the entire SIE network in London and Toronto, which are home base for the majority owner of the gold and copper companies, and perhaps in other places in Europe where the SIE is now known to have been given cover within the diaspora through NGO, academic or other positions. Assessing the activity and interest of the counterintelligence services of those countries vis-à-vis Romanians would also be a useful barometer.

Finally, it would seek to verify whether any prominent commodity traders active (or, who would be active) in the gold business in Romania have SIE ties, or whether the SIE (or the internal SRI) is keeping a close eye on such traders from abroad. It would be expected that any sudden moves or the introduction of supposed new ‘players’ on the commodities markets relative to these big investments would attract attention. If the 2006 failure to sell the copper company was due in fact to a sudden decline in copper prices on world markets, it would be natural for the SIE to seek out professionals who have a good understanding of the expected fluctuation of such prices.

Such a study might not bear fruit, not least of all because there may in fact not be any wrong-doing. But if for the sake of the example, these tactics would seem appropriate for anyone with such an interest in following the practices and identifying the role of an intelligence service in politico-economic affairs. In the end, the specific country or personalities involved are not as important as the structural dynamics and what they can teach us.

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By Chris Deliso

A two-year DEA undercover operation, which played out in exotic international locales in cooperation with police forces of several states, demonstrates that the Balkans is still perceived as a safe haven for ‘business’ and logistical activities by major international terrorism and organized crime entities.

The operation, part of which came to light when arrests were made in July of 2011, resulted in November with Romania’s extradition to the US of two foreign nationals reportedly seeking to use drug money to fund weaponry for Hizbollah.

In December 2011, further charges were laid against three financial institutions allegedly linked with money laundering for Hizballah, which has come under increased scrutiny as tensions with Iran continue to increase.

The intriguing details have been revealed in press releases from the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. These documents affirm the complexity of today’s global terrorism-organized crime nexus and also, though details are not given, raise some interesting questions regarding operational activities and what can be understood from them.

On November 17, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the Romanian government’s extraditions of Siavosh Hehareh, from Iran, and a Turk, Cetin Aksu. The press release (.PDF) detailing the charges stated that the two had been “conspiring to provide narcotics and, in the case of Aksu, material support to Hizballah through an individual whom they believed to be an associate of Hizballah, but who was in fact, a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (‘DEA’) confidential source.” It is not clear whether the latter was an actual undercover operative or a low-level terrorist financier who had possibly struck a plea bargain to cooperate. It was also not made clear whether the accused persons were representing a larger group.

The US Attorney stated that the Turkish citizen was also charged “with agreeing to buy a deadly laundry list of weapons on behalf of an associate of Hizballah,” and added that “this case provides fresh evidence of the growing nexus between drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and terrorists, a nexus with the potential to threaten our national security.”

Operational Chronology and Details

Since the background of the DEA’s ‘confidential source’ remains unknown, as does much else about the government’s planning rationale, it is difficult to estimate whether the Balkans was chosen as a major theater for the operation because of specific pre-existing links with the persons involved, or because it was deemed an advantageous or preferable area in which to operate by the US. Probably both are true.

However, what it does show beyond doubt, by virtue of the fact that the suspicions of those charged were not aroused, is that the region is perceived as safe ground for conducting negotiations between terrorist and criminal organizations. Perhaps one effect of this operation will thus be to make such groups more cautious about operating in the region in the future.

The government indictment makes visible a timeline for the operation (though pre-planning must have been extensive and thus date the whole process back by several months or longer). Apparently, back in June of 2010, the Iranian had “a series of meetings in countries including Turkey, Romania, and Greece with DEA confidential sources (the ‘CSs’), at least one of whom represented himself/herself as an associate of Hizballah.”

These meetings and a series of phone calls thereafter, resulted in an agreement to sell “hundreds of kilograms of high quality heroin” to the supposed Hizbollah associate, with it being made clear that the profits would be used to purchase weapons for the group.

The operation became significantly bigger several months later, when as a result of these meetings, the DEA source was introduced to Aksu and another individual, Bachar Wehbe, according to the press release.

“Beginning in February 2011, in Romania, Cyprus, Malaysia, and elsewhere, Aksu and Wehbe agreed to purchase military-grade weaponry from the CSs on behalf of Hizballah. In those meetings, and in telephone calls and email messages, Aksu and Wehbe discussed the purchase of American-made Stinger surface-to-air missiles (“SAMs”), Igla SAMs, AK-47 and M4 assault rifles, M107 .50 caliber sniper rifles, and ammunition, from (among other places) an American military base in Germany.”

Then, in April 2011, the action resumed in the Balkans when the DEA source received a heroin sample (of 1kg, according to the press release) “from a co-conspirator of Henareh’s in Bucharest, Romania, in order to inspect its quality, and in anticipation of a subsequent, multi-hundred kilogram load.”

Things proceeded smoothly, and on June 13, 2011, Aksu and Wehbe “signed a written agreement for the purchase of 48 American-made Stinger SAMs, 100 Igla SAMs, 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 1,000 M4 rifles, and 1,000 Glock handguns, for a total price of approximately $9.5 million” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The press release further adds that while negotiating the arms deal, Wehbe “stated that he was purchasing the weapons on instructions from Hizballah. Shortly thereafter, Wehbe and others caused approximately $100,000 to be transferred to the CSs as a down payment for the weapons purchase.”

The alleged plan was thwarted, however, when the go-ahead was given for a coordinated international police operation. Henareh and Aksu were arrested in Bucharest on July 25, 2011, while authorities in the Republic of the Maldives arrested Wehbe on the same day.

In the November 17 announcement of Romania’s extradition, Attorney General Bharara praised the “outstanding work” of several domestic and international partners. On the US side, these included the DEA’s Special Operations Division and its Country Offices in Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Copenhagen, New Delhi, Athens, Cyprus, and Kabul, as well as the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, its National Security Division, and the State Department.

Among international partners, gratitude was expressed to the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative Regional Center for Combating Trans-Border Crime (SECI), the Romanian Police, the Turkish Police, the Malaysian Police, the Hellenic Police, the Cyprus Police, and the Maldives Police Service. Among these, it would seem that the Romanian security services (discussed by Balkanalysis.com earlier in 2011) had a particularly crucial role in monitoring the suspects internationally and while in the country.

Balkan Connections and Interesting Particulars

This operation shows, as stated above, that the Balkans remains fertile soil for serious organized crime and logistics planning between criminal entities and terrorist backers. Security experts have frequently made the point that the reason why little actual terrorist activities occurs in the region is precisely in order to keep the area ‘safe’ for business.

It is not surprising that Turkey and Greece were sites of such meetings as these countries have a history of being used in this regard. Malaysia, a peaceful and moderate Muslim country, also has a similar history- for example, the so-called “al Qaeda Summit” was held there in 2000. And much business from Malaysia to the Balkans, whether legitimate or illegitimate, goes through Turkey and intercessors there.

Romania is a more interesting case, as it has a much lower profile among Islamist groups. Speaking at a conference in spring 2011 in Skopje, one Romanian mufti voiced concern that an Islamic extremist fringe group was presenting a major challenge to the moderate Muslim community. However, Romanian security sources were later skeptical of the charge, and have downplayed the risk. Nevertheless, Romania too has a historic relationship with the greater Middle East and (as a recent Balkanalysis.com report indicated) there are several thousand investments in the country from Iran, the main supporter of Hizballah outside of Lebanon. This relationship could conceivably give the organization ‘legitimate cover’ to operate in the country.

The most fascinating detail of the press release, however, is the stunning claim that the DEA confidential source and the alleged plotters had planned to acquire some of their desired high-tech weaponry from “an American military base in Germany.” How could the latter have expected such an implausible outcome to be attained? This might indicate that the plotters knew of, or at least assumed, that they had at least one ‘true believer’ on base, whether a local employee or even a US soldier.

While both possibilities would be alarming, the inherent complexity of removing weapons from a US military base and transiting them internationally should have set off red flags with the plotters. And their own alleged signing of written agreements and indeed discussing such arms sales by email also seems remarkably reckless. An organization as secretive as Hizbollah would be expected to be cleverer than this. But with no further testimony given as to the level of contact the plotters had with the group, it remains difficult to speculate.

It is thus not clear whether the implosion of this plot in July 2011 lent any greater urgency to Hizballah’s famed internal security service, already on high alert due to heightening tensions between Iran, the US and Israel during the course of the year, and which has been on the offensive in recent months. Most notable was the roll-up of alleged CIA sources in Lebanon revealed in November 2011 by Hizballah- widely blamed on ‘sloppy tradecraft’ on the part of the US by analysts, who noted that Hizbollah’s counter-intelligence actions have significantly affected US capabilities.

The US is also increasingly concerned about a proxy war with Hizbollah coming from Latin America, where the group has established connections for decades. The US has taken further action against the group since the Balkan weapons-for-drugs case, including a freeze on a Lebanese-Canadian bank accused of laundering money for the group through a used-car resale program to West Africa.

A December 15, 2011 press release (.PDF) outlines the case, which also drew upon the resources of the Treasury Department. The US Attorney and DEA alleged in it the existence of “a massive, international scheme in which Lebanese financial institutions, including a bank and two exchange houses linked to Hizballah, used the U.S. financial system to launder narcotics trafficking and other criminal proceeds through West Africa and back into Lebanon.”

According to the official account of the scheme, “funds were wired from Lebanon to the United States to buy used cars, which were then transported to West Africa. Cash from the sale of the cars, along with proceeds of narcotics trafficking, were then funneled to Lebanon through Hizballah-controlled money laundering channels. Substantial portions of the cash were paid to Hizballah, which the U.S. Department of State designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.”

The government, which is seeking over $480 million in civil money laundering penalties from a bank and two exchange houses in Lebanon, also announced in the press release the November 2011 indictment in Virginia of an alleged Lebanese narcotics trafficker. Among the charges is “conspiracy to commit money laundering related to drug trafficking by Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.”

A lengthy discussion of the case and the bank’s connections with the Latin American drug trade was published in the New York Times in November. The account gave further details on the complexity of the operation. “In all, hundreds of millions of dollars a year sloshed through the [Hizbollah-linked] accounts, held mainly by Shiite Muslim businessmen in the drug-smuggling nations of West Africa, many of them known Hezbollah supporters, trading in everything from rough-cut diamonds to cosmetics and frozen chicken, according to people with knowledge of the matter in the United States and Europe,” reported the Times. “The companies appeared to be serving as fronts for Hezbollah to move all sorts of dubious funds, on its own behalf or for others.”

US Attorney Bharara added that the government operations are “putting a stranglehold on a major source of [Hizballah] funding by disrupting a vast and far-flung network that spanned three continents. Together with our law enforcement partners in the U.S. and around the globe, our commitment to disrupting and dismantling Hizballah and other terrorist organizations is unwavering.”

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It seems that as the economic and social crisis deepens, people’s nostalgia for the communist period’s perceived safeguards increases.

According to a 2006 Public Opinion Barometer of The Soros Foundation Romania, 53% of the Romanian population considered communism to be ‘a good idea.’[2] Three types of explanations were advanced in this poll: economic, ideological and experiential. According to this interpretation, from the economic point of view, it was those who suffered ‘absolute or relative losses’ due to the collapse of the communist regime that allegedly felt nostalgia for communism, and they were the poor, peasants, workers and/or low-educated.

From the ideological point of view, those who supported communism were those people who appreciated the socialist spirit of social justice that registered in the 2006 poll’s nostalgia for the past. Therefore, they positively appreciated the past communist regime because ‘they understood better something they had known.’

As far as the experiential explanation is concerned, those who have not suffered oppression during the communist regime allegedly felt in 2006 nostalgia for communism.  However, it must be emphasized that, according to the same survey, while 53% of the respondents considered communism a good idea, only 6% of them declared that they personally suffered persecutions under communism.[3]

The Public Opinion Barometer from 2007 showed that 32% of the Romanians surveyed considered at the time that ‘life was better in Romania before 1989’, a fact that was again interpreted as nostalgia for communism.[4]

Analyzing these results, Dumitru Sandu concluded that those who have felt communist nostalgia were neither older nor less educated, nor poorer, arguing instead that it was those who had lived a privileged life during the communist regime that felt in 2007 nostalgia for communism.

Sandu identified two categories of nostalgic people: approximately two-thirds (those who were not pleased with their standard of living) and the other one-third (those who were content with their lives, but were not pleased at all with the government’s accomplishments).[5]

According to a survey conducted by The Centre for Urban and Rural Sociology (CURS) in 2009, 86% of the Romanian population considered that ‘the state should provide all with a decent standard of living’, while 84% considered that ‘the state should provide all with a decent job.’

Moreover, 50% of the respondents stated that ‘the state should intervene for limiting the income of individuals’. These answers were generally interpreted as people’s attachment to ‘socialist principles’, as ‘communist mentality’ and as ‘communist nostalgia.’ Analyzing these results, Septimiu Chelcea concluded that more high-educated and young people felt nostalgia for the past in 2009 than had felt this way previously.

The survey showed that the difference between young and old, low-educated and highly-educated, active and inactive population groups have decreased in regard to people’s positive appreciation of different communist and socialist social principles.[6] Those who still find ‘some good aspects in communism’ underscored their opinions with elements that are specific to the social policies of the communist regime.

Moreover, those who still consider ‘communism a good idea’ refer to the social policies of the Communist rule. According to a CURS 1999 survey, intellectuals mostly did not support the idea of the ‘benefits’ of Communism while, according to the 2009 surveys, many had changed their minds in this regard.

The explanation for this contradiction could be that, in recent times, people have felt increasing social and economic pressures and therefore their desire for social security guarantees has increased, regardless of education levels, age or social status. In Romania social policies are currently addressing the needs of the disadvantaged social groups: the unemployed, elderly, sick etc., while the middle class is not considered as subject for social policies.

Thus, social security is not addressed from the universalistic post-war perspective, but from the limited, interwar perspective. However, in Romania, only 23 percent of the people belong to the middle class (according to a 2006 study), if the criterion taken into consideration is the level of income.[7] Therefore, the need for social security is acute in Romania nowadays, and this is the need that brings together low- and high-educated, elderly and young in ‘remembering’ – that is, reconstructing or re-imagining – the benefits of communist social policies.

A 2008 study conducted by the Agency for Governmental Strategies foresaw the results of the 2009 CURS survey in regard to the positive appreciation of the young for aspects related to the communist past. The study showed that over 30% of Romanian students considered that ‘life was better before 1989 in Romania’ because, in their opinion, the educational system and the standard of living were qualitatively superior.

This type of an answer was immediately interpreted as ‘communist nostalgia’. Sociologists, professors and journalists explained it as student ignorance: ‘they did not live during the communist period,’ or, ‘they do not know anything about the communist period;’ or, ‘they and their parents did not live the traumas of the 1950s.’[8]

Recent Surveys and Results

In 2010 and 2011, the Centre for the Study of Market and Opinion (CSOP), commissioned by the Institute for the Investigation of the Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) conducted three opinion polls with regard to the Romanian public perception of communism.[9] The surveys were taken in:

26 August-2 September 2010 2011, from a sample of 1.133 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%);

22 October-1 November 2010, 2011from a sample of 1.123 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%);

26 April-2 May 2011from a sample of 1.125 people over 15 years old (error margin of plus/minus 2.9%

According to these surveys, about 60% of the Romanian population believes that communism was a good idea, and only 25-29% believes that it was a bad idea.

	Communism was a good idea, poorly applied %	Communism was a good idea, correctly applied %	Communism was a bad idea %	Don’t know/Don’t answer %
August 2010	47	14	27	12
October 2010	44	18	29	12
April 2011	43	18	25	14

 

In 2011, some 38 % of respondents considered that the installation of communism in Romania after WWII was a good thing, while another 38% said that it was a bad thing. Half of the respondents believe that they were better off under communism. 74% of those older than 60, and 64% of those aged 40-59 consider communism a good idea, compared to 49% of those aged 20-39, and 31% of those younger than 20.

In August 2010, 72% of the respondents considered that the state should provide people with jobs and 44% with housing. About 25% consider that Ceausescu was good for the country, while only 15% argue that he harmed the country. Despite these figures, 42% of the respondents considered that the communist regime was not legitimate, and 41% believed that it was a ‘criminal. About 50% acknowledged the oppression pursued by the communist regime.

While the differences in results between August 2010 and April 2011 are not big, they are significant if compared with the 2007 or 2009 polls. For instance, in 2007 some 32% of the respondents considered that ‘life was better in Romania before 1989,’ while in 2011, 50% gave the same answer. In 2006, some 53% of the respondents considered that communism was a good idea compared to 61% in 2011.[10]

According to most of the media analyses, these results attest to Romanians’ nostalgia for communism.[11]  However, the IICCMER argues that the positive perceptions of the population with regard to communism have complex explanations and are related to the people’s present experiences and personal experiences concerning the relationships between individual, state and society. To a great extent these results are explained, according to the IICCMER, by the fact that there is no organized effort for educating and informing the population with regard to the realities of communist times.

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(Balkanalysis.com Research Service)- Foreign trade between Romania and Iran is a product of the Communist period, when the volume was higher and the politics, different. Today Romania is an EU and NATO member, yet trade with the Islamic Republic continues.

Although it accounts for a statistically speaking minor part of Romania’s economy, there are over 2,500 companies in Romania with Iranian capital and in some sectors, a very noticeable presence. Also inter-governmental cooperation has increased conspicuously in the last few months. Newly imposed international sanctions on Iran may curtail this somewhat but as of yet there is no more specific information.

The following survey is based on official statistics gathered from the Romanian Ministry of Economy, Foreign Trade and Business Environment (in Romanian, Ministerul Economiei, Comertului Exterior si Mediului de Afaceri), the Ministry’s export directory, Romanian and international media and other sources.

Statistics

According to official economic data, Romania imports from Iran mainly petroleum, hydrocarbons, paraformaldehyde, resins and fruits. Romania exports to Iran mainly parts and accessories for cars, tubes, furnaces and other machinery.

These areas reflect Romania’s general exports. June 2011 figures indicate that in 2010 Romanian exports of machine building industry parts (electrotechnics included), together with metal and metal products, combined to equal 57% of total exports.

In 2010 (based on provisional data from the government), the value of Romania’s exports to Iran stood at 116.2 million euros- an increase of 32.76% over the previous year’s 87.5 million euros. In 2009, the export to Iran represented 0.30% of Romania’s total export and in 2010 0.31%. In 2010 the value of imports from Iran was just over 32 million euros, compared with 16.9 million euros in 2009- a very substantial increase. However, in the bigger picture, imports from Iran in 2009 represented just 0.04% of Romania’s total imports, and in 2010 just 0.07%.

In 2010, the value of Romania’s imports from Iran stood at 21.4 million euros (0.10% of Romania’s total imports), compared with 22.3 million euros in 2011 (0.08% of Romania’s total imports).

According to an October 2011 press communiqué from the Ministry of Economy, in 2010 Romanian-Iranian trade reached the total value of $196.4 million. In the first 7 months of 2011 this value was at $154.1 million, of which the Romanian exports represented $122.19 million, meaning an increase of 71% in comparison with the same period of the year 2010.

Contacts

Bilateral friendship groups exist in both the Romanian and Iranian parliaments. In the Iranian parliament, the president of the group is Ahmad Nateqnoori Lakson of the Health and Medical Education Commission. A delegation of this group visited Romania relatively recently, from May 9-13, 2011, traveling from Teheran via Frankfurt and arriving in Bucharest at 1:30pm on Sunday the 8^th. On April 6, the Iranian side had disclosed that “unexpected developments” had caused the visit to be changed from the originally agreed date of May 2-6.

Details of this trip are visible on a photocopied email from Iran’s Embassy in Bucharest (.PDF). The specialized interests of the various members are indicative of the kind of sectors in which Iran sees opportunities with Romania.

On May 9, 2011, during the visit, Iranian group leader Ahmad Nateqnoori Lakson disclosed that Iran wants closer commercial relations with Romania in fields such as natural gas and oil, and that “we want to benefit from Romania’s access to the Black Sea,” according to a press release.

For his part, the vice-president of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Romania, Sorin Dimitriu, added that sectors such as research, academic and cultural exchanges, road infrastructure, fossil fuels and, green energy are attractive and could be profitable for Iranian investors. The bilateral state relations should focus more on these sectors, Dimitriu declared.

The Iranian delegation visiting Romania in May 2011 was comprised of: Ghasem Mohammadi (Agriculture, Water & Natural Resources Commission); Ali Motahari and Hamidreza Fouladgar (both of the Industries & Mines Commission); Samad Fedaee (Social Commission); Seyyed Salman Zaker (Legal Commission); Saed Javad Zakari (Expert/Secretary); Khasi Poor (General Director for Trade Affairs, Iran Chamber of Commerce), and other officials.

For its part, the Romanian parliamentary friendship group with Iran is led by Horea-Dorin Uidoreanu (National Liberal Party/PNL), who has been president of the group since March 30, 2010. Other members of the parliamentary friendship group with Iran include: its vice-president, Ciprian-Florin Luca (Social Democratic Party/PSD); Mihaela Stoica (Democratic Liberal Party/PDL); Ion Ariton (Democratic Liberal Party/PDL); Tinel Gheorghe (Democratic Liberal Party/PDL); Mircia Giurgiu (independent); Teodor Viorel Melescanu (National Liberal Party/PNL); Oana Tohme Niculescu Mizil Stefanescu (Social Democratic Party/PSD); Constantin Tamaga (Social Democratic Party/PSD); and Verestoy Attila (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania/UDMR).

Interestingly, several of these members belong to similar groups with other Muslim states. For example, Attila is secretary of the Romanian parliamentary friendship group with Jordan, and a member of the Saudi Arabia and other similar friendship groups, while Uidoreanu is also vice-president of the Romania-Lebanon friendship group, and belongs to other similar groups. Stoica is also a member of the Romanian Friendship parliament group with Iraq and other groups, while Melescanu is also a member of the Romanian Friendship parliament group with Egypt, and other groups. Stefanescu is also on the Romania-Lebanon friendship group and other groups.

It is natural to expect that, given these associations, such individuals would attract the attention of domestic and foreign intelligence services wishing to learn more about the political, social and economic dynamics in these countries. However, only private data exists regarding this possibility.

Companies

According to data from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2008 some 2,524 joint ventures with Iranian capital existed in Romania. Iran was in 38^th place in terms of countries making foreign investments in Romania. However, such figures may not reflect real totals are third-country or indirectly registered companies/investors may play a role too, mostly Russian joint ventures.

Official economic data (.PDF) from the Romanian government showed that as of December 31, 2010 Iranian investors (by country of residence) had a share in 2,616 companies in Romania, representing 1.51 of the foreign companies in the country. Altogether they had a subscribed capital of 14.6 million euros. By September 30, 2011 (.PDF), the number of such companies had increased slightly (to 2632), though the other figures had dropped (1.48% of businesses, and 11.7 million euros.

The distribution and amount of companies involved with Romania-Iran trade also creates an opportunity for espionage, though details are equally scant. There are few prominent businesses in Romania with direct Iranian ownership. However, one of the main producers and distributors of cereals in Romania, Agricover Group, is owned by Iranian investors. Its turnover in 2010 was 153 million euros.

On March 31, 2011, Voxcapital.net reported that Iranian businessman Kanani Jabbar owns 90% of the capital of Agricover SA. Jabbar also reportedly holds a Romanian passport. Further, Ziarul Financiarul reported on March 30, 2011 that the Agricover group is owned by “Iranian investors who also own the Prodal ’94 company.” The financial magazine had previously reported in December 2008 that Prodal ’94 is “controlled by the Iranian group ICB, the same group that owns Agricover.”

Interestingly, Prodal ’94 is the Romanian producer of Stalinskaya Vodka and Wembley Dry Gin. A May 2010 article by PMR, a British-American company that provides market data for investors in Central and Eastern Europe, notes that Stalinskaya “currently accounts for a 38% share of the vodka market in Romania in terms of sales value, and Wembley [accounts for] a 47% share of the gin market, according to Nielsen.” Along with Prodal ‘94, the ICB group is comprised of Granddis (distribution) and Bere Spirt Turnu-Severin (a distillery). “All three companies are majority-owned by Romanian citizens of Iranian origin,” adds PMR.

Index and Conclusions: Romania’s Top Trade Partners

Data as of June 2011 indicates that the first 10 countries in Romania’s export are: Germany (18.5%); Italy (13.3%), France (7.5%); Turkey (6.7%); Hungary (5.7%), Great Britain (3.2%); Netherlands (3%), Bulgaria 3.5%; Spain (2.5%), and Poland 2.6%.

Regarding imports, the first 10 countries for Romania’s imports are: Germany (16.5%); Italy (11.6%); Hungary (8.5%); France (5.9%); China 4.5%; Austria (3.9%); Turkey (3.5%); Poland (3.7%); Russian Federation (4.7%), and Kazakhstan (4.6%).

However, it should be noted (from data as of December 31, 2009) Romania did not enjoy a positive balance of trade with any of these countries. In fact, it only did in regards to certain states in Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf, several of which have or may have new regimes and/or social unrest not conducive to investment and a positive business climate in general. The most important trade partner was the United Arab Emirates, followed by Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq and Iran.

Thus while none of these countries is crucial to the Romanian economy, taken together the current upheaval affecting many of these countries will certainly require new strategies and transformations in Romania’s relationship with new leaderships and emerging businessmen.

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Editor’s note: With corruption viewed as a major obstacle for the EU integration of Western Balkan states, considerable political focus is being placed on the topic. This perceptive article exposes some of the often overlooked cultural divergences of public perception and reaction to corruption, and policy flaws that have perpetuated it, at the heart of the issue.

By Geanina Turcanu in Vienna*

Parliamentary representatives of EU members old and new – Spain and Austria, Slovenia and Romania – seemed to have flocked together as (corrupt) birds of a (democratic) feather, as the now famous Sunday Times investigation disclosed in March 2011. The British newspaper’s undercover reporters, pretending to be lobbyists, alleged that Spanish MEP Pablo Zalba, Slovenian MEP Zoran Thaler, Austrian MEP Ernst Strasser and Romanian MEP Adrian Severin were prepared to take bribes in return for political favors.

Yet the already notorious lobby scandal is not the focus of the current analysis. Rather, it serves to raise interest in what is an emerging trend: political consensus around a perception of corruption as a policy goal common to old and new member states, and thus an inherent demand for common tools.

Anti-Corruption Efforts Old and New: an EU Policy in the Making?

The direction of this trend is unclearly defined, and will remain so as long as societal perceptions of corruption (fuelled by corresponding informal checks and balances) continue to vary across (as well as between) old and new member states. Since tackling corruption is considered such an important criterium for integrating the Western Balkans into the EU, its development will have to be watched closely.

The Stockholm Programme pioneers an EU mandate to fight corruption where security challenges are at stake, namely financial interests and cross-border crime. The Lisbon Treaty even grants tackling commonalities through an institutional avenue: the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Still, interpretations of the EU corruption vocabulary differ – in light of inherited social codes. The 2009 Special Eurobarometer Attitudes of Europeans towards corruption indicated worrisome levels of concern (78%) in both new and old member states. However, the survey measures a proxy: perceptions of corruption, which are formed against pre-existing social standards.

That there are no corruption-free societies is not news; nevertheless, the difference between corruption as an exception and corruption as a rule raises a number of essential questions. For example, could corruption as a rule have been curbed through a decade-long EU conditionality? Should the Central and Eastern European former communist states that recently joined the bloc have been left unsupervised, immediately after accession? Have the political elites matured enough to continue the fight against their own corrupted networks?

And, last but not least, has corresponding democratic tuition been imparted to the citizens of new member states? Did they learn when and how they can react?

Legal Framework and Common Tools

The current legal framework places anti-corruption efforts under a monopoly of legal experts. By exclusively proposing tools like police and customs cooperation, rescue services, criminal and civil law cooperation, anti-corruption efforts at the level of EU policy are channelled towards a shared legal fight against security challenges: financial and cross-border crime.

A common goal is an irrefutable achievement, but common tools are problematic as they assume similar recipients of a proposed legal solution. They give no credit to contributions from ethics, political science, sociology or anthropology- revealing striking societal differences across member states, despite EU leverage.

Investigation into structural specificities that shape societal perceptions of corruption is needed for Brussels to avoid the risk of mistaking similar symptoms for identical causes. It is customary that setting goals, which are further pursued with carefully chosen tools, are preceded by serious attempts at accurately delimiting the policy problem.

Irrefutable Achievements: Is Curbing Corruption Equivalent to a Unified EU Policy Goal?

As expected, the drive for progress towards an EU anti-corruption policy was backed by Transparency International (TI) and FLARE (Freedom, Legality and Rights in Europe); non-governmental organisations which provided support to collect signatures via their own campaigns. In May 2010, the European Parliament adopted The Written Declaration on the European Union’s Efforts to Combat Corruption.

The document was co-authored by 5 MEPs from different political groups and of different nationalities, however united by a shared legal background: Monica Macovei (EPP Group – Romania), Simon Busuttil (EPP Group – Malta), Luigi de Magistris (ALDE – Italy), Ana Gomes (SD – Portugal), and the Belgian Green Party member Bart Staes – the last an exception, being an economist. However, because corruption undermines the mere fabric of society, there is a need for further social science analyses to be commissioned.

As the Maltan MEP Simon Busuttil put it then, “this is another step in putting the fight against corruption on the EU agenda. We shall certainly be following up?’

The Lisbon Treaty opened up a window of opportunity for the EU to enforce anti-corruption legislation (Jana Mittermaier, TI), in light of which the Declaration was followed by an Anti-Corruption Public Hearing in October 2010.

Once more, Romanian MEP Monica Macovei was determined to “call upon the Commission and the Council to establish a strong and solid anticorruption monitoring mechanism in the EU” and appealed to member states “to show political will and support such an EU mechanism.” She also added that “the failure to act now puts both taxpayer’s money and the Union’s credibility at high risk. Let’s not pretend we cannot see it!”

Macovei (who served as Justice Minister in Romania from 2003) is credited for the success of the anti-corruption reforms in Romania and Macedonia. After the government reshuffling in 2007, she was Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia on anti-corruption issues.

Candidates from former communist states were assigned anti-corruption reforms through EU conditionality, in light of their problematic political inheritance. With the notable exception of a Council Framework Decision of 2003 on combating corruption in the private sector, old member states lacked a common goal, and thus common tools for curbing corruption.

A status quo, which was passed on to the new member states once their accession process was concluded, absolved them of further legal responsibility in supervising their anti-corruption policies. Post-accession empirics tend to show that anti-corruption efforts were undermined by the lack of checks and balances following the conclusion of conditionality. As various cases show, anti-corruption reformers, left unprotected, became victims of economic or political power games.

Unified Anti-Corruption Policy Tools: Challenged by Two Differing Vocabularies?

Active in the debate, anti-corruption expert Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (a political consultant at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin) reinforces the distinction between old and new democracies. If extrapolated into old and new EU member states, the model draws attention to a key aspect for current EU policy efforts.

Corruption embraces substantially different avatars in societies organized around the principle of ethical universalism- namely, the established democracies such as older member states, than in societies organized around the principle of competitive particularism- such as a number of post-communist states, including new member states and candidate countries such as those in the Western Balkans.

Whereas in the former corruption occurs as an exception to institutionalized universalistic codes, in the latter it represents the rule according to which power groups (also known as predatory elites) divide public goods among themselves after winning electoral competitions. Ethical universalism and competitive particularism are extremes of an imagined spectrum (which does not however explain the democratic performances of Greece and Italy as old membe states, or Estonia as a newer one).

Perceptions of Corruption

Although perhaps counterintuitive, there is an indirect relationship between the level of corruption in a given state and the perception of its citizens, as follows: the higher the level of corruption among political elites, the lower the level of perception among citizens.

Thus, in patrimonialist regimes – which are very corrupt – the perception of corruption is low. As they undergo the process of democratization, citizens develop a moderate level of perception in competitive particularist regimes- which are moderately corrupt.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, fully democratic societies – which are the least corrupt – generate a high perception of corruption. This division carries essential implications for structuring anti-corruption policy efforts. Explicitly, it is necessary that recognising commonalities be complemented in new member states by preparing the soil for uprooted institutions via translation of corresponding mentalities.

Illustrative in this regard are the dysfunctionalities of the Scandinavian ombudsman, in new member states. This is a most democratic institution planted in the forms of a hostile, undemocratic mentality. Transparency International is agreed that “corruption in the EU has the following repercussions: [it] undermines good governance, the rule of law and fundamental rights, leads to the misallocation or misuse of EU resources, harms the private sector and distorts the EU internal market, the push for progress in the fight against corruption [and] considerably slows down as soon as countries become EU member states. ”

Last but not least, the NGO adds that “more needs to be done to protect people who report irregularities – whistleblowers.”

And, a summary of a September 15, 2010 European Parliament hearing on anticorruption (published on the Monica Macovei website) indicates an established causality between corruption and the EU economic crisis. Furthermore, it explored potential paths towards an EU anticorruption policy, and a mechanism to monitor its implementation in the member states. It lacked references to petty corruption, in education and health.

Crafting New EU Policy Between Divergent Democracies, and Challenges for Civil Society

That the Swedish are also dissatisfied with the performance of national anti-corruption policy does not make Sweden a corrupt state. Instead, it does show that the Swedish are democratically literate.

Specifically because in older democracies public goods such as order, rule of law, health, education and so on are distributed impersonally among citizens, any infringement upon them is signaled as a danger. On the contrary, in new democracies, social status (i.e., the distance from the group in power) sets the standard for public resource acquisition.

In older democracies, citizens lose trust in politicians on account of their perceived failure to mitigate cases of corruption in the private sector. In new democracies, citizens lose trust in politicians because the private sector is “a fiction,” designed to provide a legal framework for leaders to engage in rent-seeking behavior.

If citizens’ attitudes motivate anti-corruption policy (as indicated by the 2009 Eurobarometer), then in-depth country analyses from interdisciplinary perspectives need to step in for the search for tools. Mungiu notes that civil society as an anti-corruption actor undertook successful initiatives during the pre-membership conditionality period in new member states.

Ironically, however, with accession, these groups lost their financial support and thus impact. Left unprotected, reformers became victims of the power games they regulated. The consequence was the dissolution of a fragile democratic mentality in the making.

Equally significant is that Mungiu draws attention to the substantial amounts of money wasted on campaigns in the public sector instead of empowering citizens. Sharpening anti-corruption awareness seems to be still competing with internalized expectations of being treated similarly to those sharing one’s status.

At the end of the day, the question remains: would curbing corruption bring a better life to citizens in new member states, compared to simply joining the existing corrupted networks? In a nutshell, whereas most old member states rely on an institutionalised politico-judicial maturity, complementary checks and balances must be added to curb anti-corruption in some newer ones.

……………………………..

*Geanina Turcanu is a political analyst with interests in EU policy, legal issues and the Balkans. She is currently serving as a Project Assistant at the University of Vienna, and is an admin and writer for the Bucharest BabelBlog.

Geanina earned an MA in Political Science from Central European University in Budapest, and was previously in Valencia’s Polytechnic University as an Erasmus student in the Faculty of Management and Business Administration. She also holds a BA in International Relations and European Studies from the Faculty of European Studies at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. In addition to her native Romanian, Geanina speaks English, Spanish and French.

Balkanalysis.com Editor’s note: Although Communism is long gone in EU-member Romania, one particularly fascinating part of that lurid past – the role of the secret services in public life – still draws attention, as the following informative study reveals.

By Elena Dragomir in Targoviste, Romania

One of the most important problems that Romania had to address once communism collapsed in 1989 was how to deal with the legacy of its infamous Securitate- the all-pervasive Department of State Security. Although much of that legacy has been dealt with since then, the discussion and debate over security sector reform in general continues today. While numerous politicians, journalists, scholars, Romanian and non-Romanian alike, stress that Romania would need to confront many obstacles in order to bring the reform of the secret services to the desired end, relevant legislation remains under consideration and no final solutions have been reached.

A brief overview of the services, and the use or misuse of them by media and politics today, indicates the topic’s continuing significance in Romanian public discourse and public life, more than two decades after the toppling of the communist regime.

Structural and Organizational Background

The General Direction for People’s Security – in Romanian, the Departamentul Securităţii Statului or simply, the Securitate – was established by Decree no. 221 on 30 August 1948, as one of the directorates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Four years later, decree no 324 (on 18 September 1952) separated the Securitate from the Ministry of Interior, and created the Ministry of State Security. Then, on 7 September 1953, the Ministry of State Security merged with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. On 10 July 1956, the Ministry of Interior was reorganized into the Interior Department and the Security Department.

Almost a decade later, with Decree no 710/22 (on July 1967) the Securitate came to be called the ‘Council of State Security’ within the Ministry of Interior Affairs. In April 1968, this Council separated from the Ministry of Interior Affairs and functioned as a central body.

Branches of the Securitate

The Council of State Security and the Ministry of Interior Affairs would later be merged, forming the Ministry of Interior (Decree no 130 from 19 April 1972). As a result of this decision, the Council of State Security was organized in six directorates: domestic intelligence; economic counter-espionage; counterintelligence; military counter-espionage; security and protection for VIPs; and criminal penal investigation. The foreign intelligence service (with the directorate of espionage and the directorate of counter-espionage) functioned within this, as a separate entity though.

In March 1978, the then-chief of foreign intelligence Mihai Pacepa defected to the USA, an event which resulted in an urgent and comprehensive reform process, including the forced “retirement” of many covert operations.

Thereafter, the Securitate officially came to be called the Department of State Security, and it functioned within the Ministry of Interior until 1989. In 1989, at the time of the fall of Communism in Romania, the Securitate had in addition to its six directorates eight special units. These were: the special unit against terrorism; the special ‘F’ unit (the stakeout unit); the service for protecting state secrets; the independent service for foreign trade; the center for informatics and documentation; the ‘D’  service (disinformation service); the independent service of judicial secretariat, and the independent service of education and mobilization.

First among Agencies: the SRI

On 26 December 1989 the National Salvation Front decided on the termination of the Securitate, and subordination of the Department of State Security to the Ministry of National Defense, where it remained until the end of 1990. On March 26 1990, Decree no 181 had created the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI; in Romanian, Serviciul Român de Informaţii), the main secret service in Romania today. Many feared that the SRI inherited the personnel, the methods and the faults of the former Securitate. Today, it is unlikely that few, if any officers from the Communist period remain there, however. According to the law, the secret service is responsible to the Romanian Parliament.

The SRI’s mission is officially defined as follows: “the Romanian Intelligence Service is the official institution of Romania with competences in gathering and making effective use of national security-related intelligence. The activities are carried out mainly on the national territory but also outside [its] borders, in cooperation with other institutions with responsibilities in the field of monitoring and preventing cross-border threats. The Romanian Intelligence Service plans and carries out activities aimed at gathering, verifying and processing the information necessary for identifying, preventing and countering actions which may legally constitute threats to Romania’s national security. (…) The Romanian Intelligence Service carries out activities aimed at protecting the state secret[s] and preventing the leakage of intelligence that, according to the law, cannot be made public. By its specialized structures, the Romanian Intelligence Service is conducting intelligence and technical activities related to preventing and countering terrorism as well as counterterrorist operations against facilities attacked or occupied by terrorists, in order to capture or annihilate them and free the hostages.”

The communist Romanian Center of Foreign Intelligence (in Romanian, Centrul de Informaţii Externe, CIE) was reorganized in February 1990 and transformed into the Foreign Intelligence Service (in Romanian, Serviciul de Informaţii Externe, SIE). Law no. 1/1998 governs the organization and functioning of the Foreign Intelligence Service, and characterizes the SIE as ‘the state body specialized in foreign intelligence concerning the national security and the safeguarding of Romania and its interests.’ The Service ‘is part of the national defense system,’ and is under the control of the Parliament, ‘while observing confidentiality as to the means and sources of intelligence collection.’

On the Inside- the DGIPI

A third secret service in today’s Romania is the General Directorate for Intelligence and Internal Protection (in Romanian, Direcţia Generală de Informaţii şi Protecţie Internă, DGIPI), subordinated to the Ministry of Administration and Interior. Thus, it is the secret service of the Ministry of Interior. Created in 1990 from the branch of the Securitate covering the capital, Bucharest, it turned into the UM 0215 (“two and a quarter,” in the popular parlance of the 1990s), then transformed into the Special Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Interior. Then, in 1998, it was turned into the General Directorate for Intelligence and Internal Protection (DGIPI) subordinated to the Ministry of Administration and Interior.

The DGIPI’s website states its main tasks. It ‘performs intelligence activities with a view to obtaining, developing and providing the intelligence necessary for the prevention and countering of serious crime; identifies and provides information concerning threats and risks against public order as a component of national security, generated by persons or criminal groups involved in the organized crime; carries out internal protection activities in order to identify, prevent or counter any risks, threats and vulnerabilities concerning the personnel, missions, property, and classified information of the ministry; implements, within the responsibility area of the ministry, the legal standards regarding the protection of the national, EU and NATO classified information; ensures the coordination of the departments within the Ministry of Administration and Interior with responsibilities in terrorism prevention and countering; ensures the intelligence control over the observation of the legal framework regarding the dual-use products and technologies; enforces the authorizations issued by magistrates, in keeping with the provisions of the law and in the cases foreseen by it; participates in the implementation of the projects developed by the National Intelligence Community within the scope of its competence and responsibility area.’

Listening in- the STS

The Special Telecommunications Service (in Romanian, Serviciul de Telecomunicaţii Speciale, STS) is the fourth secret agency of Romania. The communist Special ‘R’ Transmission Unit, subordinated to the Ministry of Interior, was taken over by the Ministry of National Defense in 1990, and in 1992 received its current name.

The service organizes and coordinates the activities in the special telecommunications field for the Romanian public authorities, which include the Romanian Parliament, the Presidential Administration, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Romanian government, the central and local public administrations and so on. The institution has a military organization and is part of the national defense system.

Close Protection- the SPP

The Protection and Guard Service (in Romanian, Serviciul de Protecţie şi Pază, SPP) was created in 1989-1990 in the context of the collapse of the communist regime in Romania, to provide protection for Romanian officials. It is the fifth secret service in today’s Romania. Its communist-era precursor was the 5th Directorate of the Securitate, responsible with the protection of officials.

The DGIA- Military Intelligence

The General Directorate for Defense Intelligence (in Romanian, Direcţia Generală de Informaţii a Apărării, DGIA) is Romania’s military intelligence agency subordinated to the Ministry of National Defense. This is the sixth secret agency in Romania.

According to the official website, ‘the Directorate for Defense Intelligence is the specialized structure for gathering, processing, checking, storing and using intelligence and data related to internal and external military and non military risks and threats with possible consequences for national defense security. This structure coordinates the implementation of counter-intelligence measures and the cooperation with government and intelligence services/structures as well as with those in member states of alliances, coalitions and international organizations Romania is part of. It also ensures the security of the national, NATO and EU classified, defense-related information.’

The Recently Departed- SIPA

The Independent Service for Protection and Anticorruption (in Romanian, Serviciul Independent pentru Protecţie şi Anticorupţie, SIPA) was created in 1991 and was subordinated to the Ministry of Justice. In 2004 was reformed and became the General Directorate for Protection and Anticorruption (Directoratul General pentru Protecţie şi Anticorupţie).

The reorganizing was due to a huge scandal, the service being repeatedly accused of spying on judges and acting as a political police, but also of being led by former members of the communist Securitate. In 2006, for the same reasons, the Minister of Justice abolished this secret service. Some voices argue that SIPA was not really abolished, as it was replaced by the Directorate for Preventing Crime and Terrorism in Penitentiaries, subordinated to the same ministry.

An Unknown Quantity

Currently, many of these Romanian secret agencies have come under media scrutiny, and have been criticized for a number of reasons, though much remains unclear due to a lack of accurate information. References to alleged misuse of the agencies by rival politicians are also all too common.

One argument presented by many critics is that Romania has too many secret services- and too many secret agents. But the numbers are unclear, as there is no official data. Some individuals employed in this sector have made declarations in this sense, but these declarations are partial and contradictory.

According to Cătălin Harnagea, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service between 1997 and 2001, Romania had (between 1996 and 2000) 12,000 active officers in the SRI alone, without mentioning anything about the other agencies. Romanian officials often argue that clandestine personnel numbers is classified information valuable to national security. Drawing on testimony such as that of Harnagea, some critics have argued that the size of the intelligence service is disproportionate to Romania’s actual security needs.

Media and Political Rhetoric about the Romanian Agencies

Romanian secret services have also been criticized for allegedly being under the political control of one man or one group, rather than under the control of parliament or government. In any case, they have been continuously useful for political infighting.

Thus in December 2009, Mediafax reported that Vasile Blaga (then a candidate for the post of Interior Minister) stated in a hearing committee that the DGIPI should act according to its statute and not try to replace the SRI. In April 2010, after having become minister, Blaga denounced the previous Minister of Interior (nominated by the rival Social Democrat Party), alleging that the DGIPI had operated as a sort of political police under their mandate, reported Ziare.

The agency was also accused in the press of illegally investigating journalists, media agencies, and politicians. Often, the political struggle between parties or within parties to obtain the leadership of ministries (such as Interior and Defense) that control the spy agencies is acute. According to Ştefan Trandafir, a Romanian journalist, having the leadership of the Minister of Interior and of the DGIPI is a very important factor with regard to controlling the political arena and the business sector in Romania. There is no Parliamentary control over the DGIPI, Trandafir argues. Whoever has the leadership of the DGIPI has access to the archive and resources of the institution and consequently has information about politicians, adversaries, businessmen, information used to ‘negotiate’ different issues, he alleged.

Radu Tudor, another journalist, argues that the rivalry between DGIPI and the SRI is not ‘random,’ but ‘stimulated from the highest political level in Romania.’

In February 2011, Traian Igaş, the Minister of Interior, declared that the reorganization of the DGIPI has not been ‘efficient enough,’ Mediafax reported. In the same month, the central daily newspaper România Liberă claimed that ‘the secret service DGIPI is the main [actor] culpable for the proliferation of corruption in the Ministry of Interior.’ Traian Băsescu, Romania’s president, was cited as calling for the urgent reformation of the Ministry of Interior and of the DGIPI, through evaluating every single member of the staff. Anonymous sources from the Ministry of Interior stated for the newspaper that this reformation would mean changing the ‘inefficient’ and ‘corrupt’ leadership of the agency and dismissing 20,000 employees.

Similar allegations of the secret services’ presence in the political arena are frequent. In April 2010, for instance, Claudiu Săftoiu, former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, declared that the National Union for the Progress of Romania (Uniunea Naţională pentru Progresul României, UNPR) political party had been created by the secret services.

However, Săftoiu refused to mention which secret services were actually involved in this regard. The party was formed in March 2010 by politicians who had defected from other political parties hostile to President Băsescu. The new party became a supporter of Băsescu and, according to Săftoiu, was created through blackmailing different politicians with information from the archives of the secret services, Ziare reported.

The Curse of ‘Collaboration’

The accusations and issues involving the SRI are even more numerous and complex. One of the most common denunciations in post-Communist Romanian political life has been alleging that political rivals collaborated with the Securitate. In 1999, the National Council for Studying the Archives of the Securitate (CNSAS) was created. Its aim is to administrate the archives of the former communist secret services in Romania, and to develop educational programs and exhibitions for preserving the memories of the victims of the communist regime in Romania.

One of the most important missions of the Council was given as to expose the former collaborators and informers of the Securitate. In 2009, for instance, the Council identified 298 alleged former Securitate officers. Another mission of the Council is to verify if different persons holding or standing for different public offices had collaborated with the communist secret services. In 2009, the Council looked into the backgrounds of over 7,000 such persons, and identified 29 former Securitate officers as currently holding public officers.1

The CNSAS: A Questionable Institution?

However, the National Council for Studying the Archives of the Securitate is a very controversial institution and its decisions are often contested.[1] The Romanian-born German writer and Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller, for instance, noted that her Securitate file from the CNSAS is incomplete.[2] This raises a key issue regarding the CNSAS and its decision-making process: the SRI still has the archives of the former Securitate, and it decides which files and which parts of certain files go to the CNSAS for analysis. Some have thus suspected that personnel within the SRI can use the CNSAS to achieve their own goals, by eliminating political rivals from the electoral competition, to support others and so on.

The case of the Romanian senator Dan Voiculescu is an example in this regard. Initially, in 2000, the Council concluded that he was not guilty of any former collaboration, as the SRI had provided the Council with very little information from its archive about Voiculescu. However, in 2006 when Voiculescu decided to become candidate for the office of vice-prime minister, the Council received from the SRI a new file about Voiculescu. Based on this new file, the Council decided that Voiculescu had been a collaborator of the Securitate.[3]

On March 10, 2011, the High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled that Voiculescu had indeed collaborated with the communist-era secret service. Voiculescu declared that he was a victim of political pressure, and that he will contest the decision in the European Court of Human Rights. According to Voiculescu, in his case, the SRI acted according to orders given by his currently empowered political adversaries.[4]

Public Perception of Relations between Politics and the Agencies

The accusation of having collaborated with the Securitate is one of the most important political tools in electoral campaigns or within the political struggle for power in general. Even Romania’s President, Traian Băsescu, has come under the suspicion of having been a high-level Securitate officer during the communist regime, and of having maintained its mandate and political power with the direct support of the secret services. Many argue that having a good relation with the secret services is a sort of guarantee for being successful in electoral campaigns or in personal business, as well as a guarantee that one’s adversary will lose.

Likewise, if the secret services had helped such an individual to reach his or her goals, then the latter would be very attentive to accommodate the interests and needs of the former once in power- assuming that he or she was not the mere instrument of those secret services in the first place. This is the general public perception regarding the relation between the level of political power and the secret services.

In one relevant example from 2009, the Special Telecommunications Service was accused of having supported Traian Băsescu in the electoral campaign, for instance, by sending text messages on the mobile telephones of the people announcing the victory of Băsescu, before the final result was known, or by ‘helping’ Băsecu’s party to count the votes.

However, finding out the truth about such public accusations and speculations requires transparency with regard to the security sector from officials. Since the 1990s, the Romanian authorities have been announcing further reformation of the sector. In 2009, President Băsescu declared that the reformation of the SRI had been successfully concluded during the previous year.[5] However, despite this declaration, there is still a public sentiment that more reform is needed, and more legislation remains waiting to be decided in parliament.

Current State of Affairs: No Big Rush in Parliament

In an article of 8 March 2011, the journalist Vlad Mixich noted that both the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service function according to rather old laws, which had been created at a time when Romania was not a member of NATO or of the EU. Mixich also noted that the reformation of the secret services started some years ago under the pressures coming from NATO and the EU.[6]

There are currently five new legislative projects addressing the secret services: the law on national security, the laws regarding the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service, the statute of the intelligence officer and the law regarding the activity of intelligence and counter intelligence.

The new laws stipulate the merging of the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service, the multiplication of the powers of the intelligence officers, the inclusion of all the secret services into an Intelligence Community subordinated to the presidential councilor for defense problems, the right of the intelligence services to develop commercial activities, and the right of former intelligence officers to participate in politics.[7] Currently these laws seem to be on standby in the Parliament.

At the moment, there is no discussion going on regarding such pending legislation in the Romanian parliament, despite rumors circulated in the beginning of 2011 that action was imminent. It seems most likely that the parliamentary debate will be postponed at least until after the next parliamentary election in 2012.

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Note: the below article has been modified since initial publication. Due to a change in the operation, a military plan was used instead of a civilian one, and the evacuation also occurred later in the day than originally planned.

By Chris Deliso in Skopje

A Boeing 737 aircraft will depart from Bucharest at 11AM Thursday morning in order to recover several hundred Romanian citizens stranded in Libya, and will return by 3:30PM, Balkanalysis.com can report.

With the longtime rule of Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi appearing to be close to a violent end,  world governments have switched into high gear to launch cooperative evacuation plans for their citizens. Balkan nations have taken the initiative themselves, and in some cases are benefiting from the goodwill of other nations.

With the east of Libya apparently out of the legendary dictator’s control, and pro-Qaddafi supporters trying to stamp out protests, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has warned that “death squads” loyal to Qaddafi  are responsible for perhaps over 1,000 dead. Frattini also warned that the upheaval could well lead to an Islamist breakaway state in the east and a flood of refugees into Western Europe.

Citizens of foreign countries are fleeing Libya apparently even faster than they did Egypt, where civil unrest towards the Mubarak regime several weeks ago led to an exodus. Balkan countries have relatively small numbers of citizens in Libya at the time with the exception of Turkey, which has about 25,000 nationals in the North African state, most of them involved in the construction industry.

According to Reuters, approximately 3,000 Turks were evacuated from Beghazi on two ferries early on Wednesday. Further, reported the news agency, a Bosnian plane with “the first group of up to 1,500 Bosnian citizens” to be evacuated was awaiting a permit from authorities in Tripoli, stated assistant foreign minister Zoran Perkovic. Macedonia has stated it will work together with Bosnia to evacuate its citizens, cost being cited as a factor in the Macedonian media.

Also, a Bulgaria Air plane arrived in Sofia from Tripoli early Wednesday carrying 110 Bulgarians and six Romanians, and another plane sent by the Bulgarian government aircraft will also be carrying 70 Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian citizens, among others. Further, Reuters cited Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic in reporting that 145 Croatian citizens working in Libya had been evacuated. Meanwhile, a Greek cargo ship was dispatched to collect some of the 330 Greeks living in Libya.

According to Reuters, Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi said on Wednesday that “around 450 Romanians are still in Libya and around 80 have already been repatriated.”

Balkanalysis.com has learned further information about the Bucharest government’s evacuation plan. The Thursday morning flight finally agreed upon was the final result of a hectic process involving officials in several countries, with the timing changing several times. According to one official involved with planning the rescue, “there was some uncertainty- it could have been either earlier today, tonight, or later, but first the overflight rights had to be agreed.”

As is the case with other evacuating countries, coordination of movements has to happen with protocol requests for movements across national airspaces for these unexpected flights. The Romanian officials had to liaise with the foreign ministries of several countries in order to get their 737 plane on track for tomorrow morning.

Therefore, Romanian diplomats were putting efforts in throughout Wednesday in overflight permission requests from the foreign ministries of the countries involved. These countries are those which will be used for the flight path of the Romanian plane- Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Italy and Malta, according to the official.

Malta, situated across from Libya in the Mediterranean Sea, is on full alert now. Security forces deployed to physically prevent a plane believed to be carrying Col. Qaddafi’s daughter from landing at Valetta Airport two hours ago.

This follows the defection of two Libyan Air Force pilots who landed in the usually quiet island on Monday after claiming to have disobeyed orders to bomb civilian protesters.

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After an EC-commissioned audit, Romania was warned on 13 November “to tighten controls in its farm payment systems or face a severe cut in subsidies next year from the European Union,” the Financial Times reported yesterday.

The vast, largely agricultural country in the northeastern Balkans is hoping to receive 443m euros in EU payments to its farmers next year, the first installment of a 4.3bn euro total expected between now and the end of 2013. However, it could lose its first 180m euros of EU subsidies unless it can “correct problems in the information technology systems that it uses to distribute payments to farmers.” Along with food safety, judicial reform and corruption, agriculture reform was singled out as one of the trouble spots by Brussels as an area requiring more efforts when Romania was admitted to the EU at the beginning of this year.

A Romanian news website has reported that the government is working on the issue and that Bucharest “will not make any large scale payments [to farmers’ before the necessary checks are made and proved that it made functional its software module.” In its report, the critical EC allowed some amount of leniency by extending the deadline for reform implementation by one month, to December 16.

Quoting the EC report, the FT cited that Brussels had found “”major deficiencies in the software module designed to ensure that payments are made correctly’ to Romanian farmers and landowners.” These problems, reports the Guardian, more specifically mean upgrading the national livestock computer database and fixing software to ensure that necessary checks have been carried out on the farmers before payments are made. If the government fails to correct the problem by December 16, it will have to make the payments out of the national budget instead of from the EU. Agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of employment in Romania, a country of over 20 million people.

To reassure the Eurocrats that Romania is on the right track, Agriculture Minister Dacian Ciolos was dispatched to Brussels on Wednesday to affirm that the country “would do its utmost to correct any shortcomings,” reported the Guardian.

The underlying issue is not just of one reform, however. It’s also linked to the larger issue of European perceptions of Romania’s readiness for the EU.

Stating that the agricultural payments issue just provided more fuel for older EU members’ cynicism of Romania as unprepared when it joined the bloc on January 1^st, 2007, the FT claimed that “opponents of further EU enlargement are using Romania’s difficulties as ammunition in their battle to delay or prevent the accession of other relatively backward Balkan countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro.” Residents of at least the latter two countries might well take affront at being compared to Romania on the grand scale of backwardsness. Indeed, no one seriously believes that Romania and Bulgaria, the latest successful candidates to join the bloc, were snapped up for any reasons other than their geostrategic location on the Black Sea and Europe’s periphery with Russia. Now Brussels is dealing with the not-so-hidden charges associated with that purchase.