A new director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service

Mihai Razvan Ungureanu is the new director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service.

Roxana Vasile, 01.07.2015, 13:43

Mihai Razvan Ungureanu has returned at the helm of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service, which had been headed since the winter of 2014 by an interim director, following the resignation of the then director Teodor Melescanu, who decided to run in the presidential election.

A historian and a diplomat, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu was Romanias foreign minister between 2004 and 2007, then the director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service between 2007 and 2012. He was also prime minister from February to May 2012. He thus had the shortest term in office as PM in the history of post-Communist Romania.

All the offices he held during the mandate of President Traian Basescu brought Mihai Razvan Ungureanu the antipathy of the Social Democrats that saw in the 47-year old Liberal a close collaborator of their number one political adversary. This is why his appointment as director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service by president Klaus Iohannis, whose advisor he was, has caused quite a stir within the Social Democratic Party.

The Social Democrats believe that a comeback of Basescus former collaborators to key positions is now being prepared, therefore they have decided to boycott the vote of Ungureanus investiture in Parliament.

The leader of the Social Democrats, Marian Neacsu, argued that: “Since we lack the approval of the Expert Committee, we cannot say if, at the moment, Mr. Mihai Razvan Ungureanu complies with the conditions for being appointed director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service.

Despite the fact that the Social Democrats did not participate in the vote, alongside the representatives of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu was however validated as director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service with 278 votes for and 6 against. He gave up his mandate as senator of the National Liberal Party and was sworn in as director of the Foreign Intelligence Service: “We need a new legislative framework, a new security culture, we need to bridge the knowledge gap between the professional community and the Romanian society as a whole. I will ask you to give your support to update the laws related to national security.

Romanians expect the countrys security institutions to cooperate in order to fight corruption, to strengthen the rule of law and democracy, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu also said before Parliament. In the Parliament vote Mihai Razvan Ungureanu was supported by the senators and deputies of the National Liberal Party, the Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the national minorities group and, to the stupefaction of the Social Democrats, by the members of the National Union for the Progress of Romania, a small party in the ruling coalition dominated by the Social Democrats.