INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY SERVICES IN THE 21st CENTURY SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

26-28 SEPT 2002, SNAGOV, ROMANIA

Introductory Remarks by Dr. Gheorghe Fulga, Director of SIE

            Distinguished attendees,

I am most honoured by the special opportunity I have to take part, alongside distinguished representatives of the intelligence and security services from NATO member or new ally states, in this follow-up conference.

I would venture to say to the organizers that the acceptance of the proposed agenda is the indisputable proof of the interest elicited by the first Conference held in Sinaia, last April, and also an indication of an incipient process of evolving coherent structures and inter-action patterns to round off the shared concern for common security.

The intelligence and security structures which most of the people here represent – or with which part of you are cooperating in a legal, institutional format – have been for over a year faced with a tremendous challenge. What should they do, in order to win the battle with new threats, among which terrorism stands out through both its dangerous character and its quasi-omnipresence?

This question emphasizes how favourable an ambience this is for putting forward new ideas, as well as the higher likelihood for them to gain fast recognition, owing to the shared feeling that a better performance of the intelligence and security services is needed.

However, it may not be devoid of interest to attempt to sort out somehow earlier the foreseeable limitations of the new level of performance we all hope to have access to, and also to become aware of a risk inbred in this process (that we wish to be both tenacious and fruitful), namely that new problems could crop up, to which we should think out, as early as now, the appropriate solutions.

In an attempt to elaborate a bit on the proposed agenda of the conference, I wish to emphasize the applied, working character of the topics. Without prejudicing or trying to influence in any way the conclusions that will be drawn at the end of the debate, it is my opinion that we face highly topical issues for the professionals and, in particular, the management of the intelligence and security services. In the proposed sequence, they make up a synthesis likely to elucidate the national functions of these services and to lay out, simultaneously, the desirable common action lines for attaining the goals subordinated to the concept of common security.

I also think that the timing of this conference will most certainly allow, especially the candidates, to timely make operational the practical conclusions – relevant both to the development/compatibilization programmes subsumed to the MAP and, on a broader level, to the shared standards and values of Europe and the democratic community at large.

Reiterating my feeling that it is a special personal experience to partake of the distillation into a consolidated acquis of the expertise  accumulated by personalities involved – either directly, or through oversight  and control – in the responsibilities and performance of the intelligence and security services, I wish to stress the tremendous responsibility devolving on us. And this, because we are the ones involved at the top in setting the new lines of expectation  as to specific standards, practice and methods, on a par with the new developments in the international security environment.

Another positive conclusion that I wish to share with you is that, in the new global strategic dynamics, the intelligence and security services have asserted themselves, at the beginning of the 21st century, as a genuine integrating factor, capable of maintaining the overall balance and stability. Now it is obvious that the intelligence and security service in democratic states, as a whole, work to improve the global society, not to create new tension, as unconflicting expressions of national, regional or international power.

In the terms of a new, post-conflict ethos and professional deontology, this means that we witness a beneficial convergence between the objective need and the will of these services to replace confrontation with cooperation, manipulation with fair-play.

Reverting to our Snagov conference, I cannot overlook the importance of some highly topical, novel elements like the legal aspects of intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism placed on the current agenda. In our view, they will allow to define an integrated approach also in the legislative sphere, since globalization is giving relevance to both building the legal and institutional infrastructure and harmonizing it with the real vectors of cooperation. We, moreover, appreciate that the democracies’ concern for developing and standardizing the legal framework for intelligence matters is a response to novel issues cropping up also in relation to the protection of the human rights; it is so more true as, for instance, the intelligence collection targeting terrorist entities and organized crime groups is increasingly more intrusive.

In my opinion, the special opening in this seminar is, however, represented by the discussion on multidiscipline intelligence as a key element to government information. In this area, I think that the role of intelligence and security services, in their relationship with the executive branch of government, is to give a prompt, highly qualified input on the strategic level, so as to enable such decision-making as is opportune for the security of the national and the Allied environment.

While we see development processes accelerate – in infrastructure, communications, economy and other spheres -, the importance attached to developing sophisticated intelligence products is growing. These products become the handiest tool in strategic planning, throwing into bold relief the necessary competence of intelligence and security structures as suppliers of key elements of decision-making, for the beneficiaries of their work, all while reflecting the prospective dynamics of vulnerabilities engendered by the changes that occur in the global security environment. A relevant example is the major import acquired by protective security intelligence and law-enforcement intelligence in strategic decision-making.

This is one of the reasons why I hail the emphasis placed in our current agenda on the role of information security and especially the security of the technologies used for circulating and processing it, in a potential framework of security that could render controllable the dynamic phenomena whose knowledge, assessment and control pertain precisely to the intelligence and security services.

Most particularly, I am pleased to note that the conference agenda includes topics whose common denominator is regional cooperation. I am looking forward with keen interest to the debates on this chapter, and I wish to stress the special connotation they carry for us. This, in respect of both Romania’s vocation for regional stability and the contribution which the SIE had, in its turn, to initiating the Conference of Intelligence Services of South-East Europe (May 2002).

I insist on the axiomatic truth that could stand out as the motto or methodological landmark of this conference, namely that the concerted regional approach - in a well-defined and pragmatically-oriented framework - to cross-border threats, be they diffuse or sectorial, can successfully defuse any burgeoning disagreement.

Bearing in mind the experience of the multilateral meeting of the intelligence and security services of South-East Europe and its significant success, demonstrated by the adoption of a common code of conduct, I may rightfully say that placing regional cooperation central to the debates, in this context too, is an extremely welcome initiative.

In support of the opportune character of such demarches, I would add that the debate on regional cooperation allows not only for the development of common theoretical and practical formulae for cooperation, answering simultaneously to the acute need for security that Romania, and other states of its region, now feel, but is, above anything else, an essential stage in evolving a global approach of the intelligence and security services to the challenges of the international security environment of the 21st century.

To conclude, allow me to reiterate my satisfaction with the fact that we are about to address the core of this inciting conference already with the sense of an equal dedication and of an already tangible consistent acquis that foretells the feasibility and efficiency of our future work-together in assessing risks and achieving common stability and security.

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