DefMin Dincu: People without military training cannot be dispatched to the frontline

Romania's Defence Minister Vasile Dincu said on Monday evening that people lacking military training cannot be brought into the army or dispatched to the frontline, Agerpres reports.

Dincu told Digi24 private broadcaster that certain aspects of a bill that had to be done quickly for this crisis were blown out of proportions.

"Some aspects have been blown out of proportions, such as the mobilisation of those between 18 and 60 years old. No law can say that, because in the Constitution and in the old laws of defence it is said that an active reserve of Romania shall be set up, which means people working other jobs. For example, there may be a number of provisions at the time that say you can't go on a vacation or resign, or anything else in that area. No one can bring an untrained person into the army, even if that person is 20 years old, or dispatch them to the frontline. Those who put the provisions there placed them improperly, without thinking in a context," said Dincu.

The minister detailed the package of three defence laws that concern national security.

"The package comprises three important laws: a crisis management bill, which is an older law before the pandemic (...), the state of crisis is not defined in the Constitution and we have not tried to create a new status. The second component is the cyber-security, cyber defence law, and we can see that this is a very important component of threats - it is continuous and needs to be amended (...) There were also amendments to Law 446/2006 - a national defence law contains, for example, population mobilisation, economy mobilisation, what the economy does in times of hypothetical war, and then some very important regulations regarding the State Reserves and Emergency Agency - we had to make changes not related to security or communication, but simply rules of organisation," said Dincu.

He said that the bill that reached the media was proposed before the package of three laws was considered.

"We thought we would make a law that would come with this crisis situation right now, because there is still an ongoing health crisis, the crisis in Ukraine, and then a bill should be made quickly for this crisis situation. Everyone picked up from several laws, pieces were taken from that package (...), an attempt was made to make a collage. When we saw the collage, and the prime minister saw it, they all said 'this can't work', because it was done too hastily, and then we stick to the three laws that will be in a package. But it reached the media after we decided to withdraw it and started a discussion that contains all sorts of details that are made urgent by the current hybrid war that Russia has been developing lately," he added.