Plan to streamline Interior Ministry to be unveiled in coming weeks

A plan to streamline the Interior Ministry, which provides for the establishment of the Animal Police, a change of name of the Romanian Police to the National Police, will be unveiled in the coming weeks, Interior Minister Marcel Vela announced on Wednesday.

At an event for the presentation of the new acquisitions for the Police, he said that the streamlining plan was in public consultation in January, receiving over 400 proposals from trade unions, ministry's officers, NGOs, and home affairs attaches.

"We could not continue this streamlining in February, because (...) there was an epidemic, a state of emergency. Since June, since we were no longer involved in the management of the state of alert on the frontline, as the management of the National Committee for Emergency Situations was no longer directly under the authority of the interior minister, we have redone the working group, reorganised those meetings and consultations. The plan is final and I only have to introduce it to the prime minister and other colleagues in the government who also have a responsibility or are involved in obtaining such legislation, plus an opinion from the Supreme Council for National Defence (CSAT), and I believe that moving forward, in some weeks' time, the plan will be made public," said Vela.

According to him, the plan provides for the establishment of locations in other cities, apart from the county seats, so that citizens no longer travel long distances to access the services of the Interior Ministry; the establishment of the Animal Police; change the name of the Romanian Police into the National Police, in order to make "a clear delimitation between the National Police and the Local Police."

In Vela's opinion, changes are required in the legislation regarding the closure of a court case in which the Police and the prosecutor's office are working, if the injured withdraws complaint.

"The use of firearms [by the Police] should be thought of in a philosophy in which, indeed, there should be no excesses; I do not condone violence, excess, the use of weapons when it is not the case, but if you are attacked as a police officer and there is a danger that the criminal will steal your gun and shoot you, I think the law should deal with exactly such instance, when you are attacked by ten criminals and you are a police officer and there is a possibility that they take your gun away and even shoot you, that should be considered legitimate defence. (...) The use of a weapon must be thought of in a situation of self-defence as well," said Vela.