Interview given by the Romanian Foreign intelligence Service Director, Gheorghe Fulga, phd, to the correspondent in Romania of the "Jane's Intelligence Review", Mr. Radu Tudor, on January 2003

* Gheorghe Fulga: "The officers working now in the field of foreign intelligence are cadres with the appropriate mentality, engaged in a modern and efficient system"

         Following Romania's invitation to join NATO at the Prague summit in November, its intelligence services must now start to adjust to a new environment.

        As well as the introduction of new standards, procedures and technologies, NATO membership has brought to the fore the question of the future of Securitate officers who worked under the communist regime.

        Gheorghe Fulga, the director of the Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service (Serviciul de Informaţii Externe - SIE), outlined for JIR some of the challenges that lie ahead.

        "Commencing the NATO accession negotiations, following the invitation extended at the Prague summit, means a fresh start that compels both Romania and our service to supplement its list of priorities according to the new status of an ally: tailor-made, well-targeted actions, with a close timeframe, a sort of a «roadmap» - a term that has become well-established in the language of European Union integration."

        Fulga envisages further changes in the service will result once Romania attains full membership , pointing out that: "When referring to the pre-accession stage … the SIE has been included within the security items encompassed by Chapter IV of the Membership Action Plan. Obviously, once Romania has got NATO membership, its duties will be marked by enhanced specificity as devolving from the standards applied to all the allies."

        Fulga argues that some mechanisms for co-operation between Romania's intelligence apparatus and foreign countries have already been established as a result of Romania's involvement in peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. "In the case of the actual missions that involve the Romanian military, there is a well-established support mechanism that has been shaped by co-operation with both the national security system components and our foreign partners."

        Asked about problems resulting from former Securitate officers still working in the SIE, Fulga says that: "The incompatibility you are suggesting refers, obviously, to the SIE relationship with NATO and, under such circumstances, the most accurate factor to appraise each of the SIE employees, in the logic of the access to the classified information of NATO, is posed by the possible vulnerabilities identified by it.

        It is incumbent on the SIE to observe some highly strict security regulations from a dual perspective: as a national institution, and in order to honour some professional duties with regard to foreign entities, such as NATO.

        The vetting procedures, to which I am referring, are applied according to Romanian laws that are in force within the SIE as well and, given the frequent contact we have with NATO experts, we are aware that there are no problems left unsolved, and the alliance's specialized structures are convinced that the SIE is in a position to manage in a competent and professional manner its own security matters.

        Romania could not have been placed on top of the list with the candidates inducted at the Madrid summit and would not have received an invitation at the Prague summit, if it had a Foreign Intelligence (espionage) Service employing officers hostile to the alliance.

        One of the objectives we are constantly pursuing within the service is change of personnel and the elimination of all possibilities that might lead to inappropriate associations between SIE activity and that of the political militia.

        The officers working now in the field of foreign intelligence are cadres with the appropriate mentality, engaged in a modern and efficient system, based on sharing, without reservations, Euro-Atlantic values. These essential criteria are also the basis of the new recruitment process, which involves performance standards reflected by studies, knowledge of foreign languages, socializing capabilities and so on".

        The exchange of classified information between NATO countries and Romania that will result from membership presents challenges for the management of "technical issues that will be aimed at securing all the communication ways with the alliance through Romania's permanent mission to NATO and, as you may presume, they involve a set of concrete and extremely rigorous measures. They regard the circulation of the messages that are exchanged with the alliance in real time and it is normal that the service be involved in encryption matters, irrespective of the nature of the messages.

        We are now undergoing a stage in which the SIE and ministry of foreign affaires, as well as other institutions, are called on to make an assessment of the training for the period to come and our experts have perfectly integrated into this exercise; they have well-performing technical solutions in relation to the alliance's security standards regarding encoded communications and, from our viewpoint, I do not see any obstacles."

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