IntMin Vela: By this evening, I expect the Gendarmerie to send me declassification of August 10 communications

Minister of Interior Marcel Vela said he expects the Gendarmerie to submit the recordings of the conversations that the gendarmes had through the walkie talkie stations in the evening of August 10 2018. 

"By this evening, I expect a final solution and the announcement that everything was declassified. If not, the consequences will be very serious. We will make an analysis, the secretary of state is also on it and, there is also a committee analysing this, and depending on what they are going to decide together and on the conclusions they will draw, the explanations for the delay, postponement, together we will decide accordingly," Vela told Digi 24 private television broadcaster. 

He explained that the reason given by the gendarmes units in Constanta, Ploiesti, Craiova and Bucharest for the classification of these conversations was that the almost 300 hours of conversations also included some numbers of units or military procedures that were also classified through other normative acts. 

According to the Minister, at this point, all the MAI structures are verified and measures will be taken depending on the results of these verifications. 

In his opinion, there are too many people in the offices and too little in the street, and this proportion could be improved in the favour of the ones in the street. 

He also added there are situations in which these rules could be understood, but he didn't want them to be labeled in the future as privileges of policemen. 

Asked when these verifications conducted by the Ministry will end, he showed that the MAI has around 130,000 employees, which means that the entire action is very wide and very thorough and relevant, so that the decisions that will be taken shall be "objective", "taken with celerity" and "impossible to challenge in court and won, with the Ministry then suffering damages."