Romania has a new interior minister
Dragos Tudorache is, as of Wednesday, the new interior minister in Romanias technocratic government.
Roxana Vasile, 08.09.2016, 14:49
Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos, who initially considered designating an interim interior minister, has eventually decided to appoint Dragos Tudorache, the Government’s chief of staff, for this position. PM Ciolos explains his reasons: “This is an important ministry, commissioned with important tasks in the forthcoming weeks, such as organising the elections and ensuring public order. Appointing an interim minister would only have prolonged a state of uncertainty which is neither useful nor productive.”
Romania currently has the lowest crime rate of the past few years, so at least in this respect the new Interior Minister won’t have a lot of work to do. As regards the migration phenomenon, Dragos Tudorache has said that Bucharest plans to discuss with Belgrade the idea of instating common border patrols at the Romanian-Serbian border.
Dragos Tudorache: “There have been several incidents in the past few weeks, with groups of illegal migrants testing Romania’s western border. We cannot rule out the possibility of new routes being found by the migrants, depending on the evolutions in Turkey and Greece, that’s why the Border Police must be fully prepared for this scenario.”
For the new interior minister, however, the top priority is the smooth running of the parliamentary election, which has proven a real test for this ministry in the past 20 years. That is why, talking about the December 11th elections, President Klaus Iohannis has said: “It is vital for Romania, for consolidating democracy in Romania and for conferring credibility to the Romanian electoral process that this election unfolds smoothly and safely and that its result is not flawed in any way.”
The interior minister has already announced that he will set up a new structure within the ministry that will have to make sure the election unfolds without problems, and that will also be neutral and equidistant. Dragos Tudorache: “In the following three months it is essential that we prepare for the election in the best possible manner. The Interior Ministry must support all actions, all activities that are to be conducted as of now until December.”
In conclusion, even if Dragos Tudorache’s mandate will be relatively short, it will not be a simple one, for the mere reason that the new interior minister is expected to organise an election at the highest standards.
(Translated by Elena Enache)
