Premium
Romania's security status from the perspective offered by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI)'s legal responsibilities is stable, Cristian Chirtes, chairman of the Joint Standing Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate for exercising parliamentary control over SRI's activity, said on Tuesday.
This is the main conclusion of the meeting of the Committee, attended by the director of SRI, Eduard Hellvig, and which aimed to present the security situation of Romania from the perspective of SRI's responsibilities within the country's borders and in the context of tensions in the region.
"A few days ago, I requested the presence of the SRI director in this meeting of the committee, which aimed to present Romania's security situation from the perspective of SRI's responsibilities within the country's borders and in the context of tensions in the region. Mr. Eduard Hellvig, answered the committee's questions after a presentation to the members of the commission and presented us with an updated situation of the general state of security from the perspective of SRI," senator Cristian Chirtes said at the end of the meeting.
According to him, two aspects were highlighted - the effects that the crisis in Ukraine may have on Romania and SRI's report on the main threats to national security resulting from the situation in Ukraine and the solutions identified to prevent and counteract them.
The senator also added that the topic of updating the national security legislation was put on the agenda of the discussions in order to speed up the adoption of bills on the national defence system and security for the creation and improvement of clear mechanisms necessary to manage a possible crisis situation generated in the current regional security context, Agerpres.ro informs.
"A general conclusion - the security situation of Romania from the perspective offered by the legal attributions of SRI is a stable one. Of course we developed punctual discussions on each of the legal missions of SRI, and the director answered all the members of the committee. There were a few conclusions. Cyber attacks - where in the context of the crisis, additional activities have been detected to make critical infrastructures vulnerable. Also, espionage actions carried out by secret services hostile to Romania have increased, especially in the context of the deployment of NATO troops in Romania. Information aggression has also increased - and we are talking primarily about misinformation and the phenomenon of fake news," the SRI oversight committee chairman explained.
There were also discussions about the main risks that may arise in addition, in the scenario of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.
"For Romania these risks are related to the management of the migration phenomenon, the economic effects on Romania and the management of cross-border crime operations, and the SRI director presented to the committee members each of these risks. As to the mission of SRI, to inform its legal beneficiaries about all these risks and threats, to the question if on the territory of Romania the legal beneficiaries of this information were informed, the answer was "Yes, in time and in a useful way," stated Chirtes.
He noted that members of the committee were also informed that, as of February 21, the SRI had resumed handing over the archives of the former Securitate to the relevant investigation authority.
"There were problems with the spaces, but starting yesterday, this process of handing over the second large body of files began," the SRI oversight committee chairman stressed.
