President of the Romanian Academy Ioan-Aurel Pop sent Minister of the Interior Lucian Bode a letter whereby the Bureau of the Academy Presidium calls for access to documents in the National Archives to stay free, emphasizing that access restriction is a "serious blow" to research into national history, Agerpres reports.
Ioan-Aurel Pop also expresses his concern about the "media reports regarding the destruction of certain public documents at the expiration of the legal classification period, without Archives experts first evaluating their documentary and historical content, as it should be, much to the detriment of the science of history and national identity" and calls for "the removal of the aforementioned restrictions and for the integrity of information relevant to the history of this country to be ensured."
"History-focused institutions (faculties, institutes, centers, etc.) within universities and the Romanian Academy carry out their activity based on archival investigations. Most scholars of recent history are planning works that involve such archival research. We therefore call on the responsible public authorities to intervene as soon as possible in order to lift the aforementioned restrictions and ensure the integrity of the information relevant to the history of this country. The prestigious institution called the National Archives of Romania, the main depository of the national memory and the only regulatory authority in the field of archives, which has been many a time headed by members of the Romanian Academy, must preserve its status and purpose, seek modernization, reinforcement and respect, in accordance with European Union practices," Pop concludes.