A historian, a career diplomat and, above all, a refined intellectual. Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu was the youngest minister ever in Romania’s history and one of the most credible members of the Tăriceanu Cabinet. In 2007 he became the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

In an extensive interview for Gazeta de Maramureş, Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu talks about the accomplishments and difficulties of the Romanian espionage, the looming dangers posed to Romania and the over-advertised reform of the intelligence services.

VISIT CARD

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu was born in Iasi in 1968. He graduated the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the “Al. I. Cuza” University in Iasi. Between 1992 and 1993 he attended the Centre for Jewish and Hebrew Studies associated to the St. Cross College, University of Oxford, UK (postgraduate studies). He has a PhD in history. He was, in turn, a university tutor, assistant professor, lecturing professor, university reader and in 2007 he became a university professor specializing in Romania’s modern history. His diplomatic career reached its highest in 2004-2007 when he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. Currently, he is the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu has a rich scientific and editorial activity. He was awarded a large number of prizes and titles, including Knight of the “Star of Romania” National Order (2008).

Interviewer: You have passed from a political position to intelligence director – what has this shift meant professionally speaking?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: When you are the minister of foreign affairs, your entire professional activity is focused on protecting and promoting national interest. In doing so, you have the whole political and diplomatic toolkit at hand, employing means of expression provided by the century-old practice of this trade and the remarkable experience of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both the MFA and SIE have a part in the efforts to pursue and defend our national interests. The means they employ differ, while the aim remains the same. The difference between the actions of the two institutions dwells in the intrinsic difference of content between the trade of diplomat and that of spy which both are spectacular, dynamic and intellectually and morally challenging. While diplomacy is the art of the possible, espionage is the art of the impossible, which is to say the art of gleaning information or achieving results, even if a political one, there where the diplomatic efforts can go no further. Although they are bound by their historical origins, the two trades are now dissimilar in the details. Therefore, the highest institutional representation cannot allow us to equate the two positions – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

The level of responsibility is very high in both cases. The effects of the activity conducted within the two institutions-parts of the national security system can be detected not only in the political, strategic decisions-making, but also on the social plane. The scope of legal powers does not draw an absolute separation line between these institutions. Quite the opposite, it forces the MFA and SIE to cooperate, alongside other strategically relevant bodies on the basis of a common denominator – the national interest as it is described by the policies that bear the signatures of the main political decision-makers.

Interviewer: When you sat in the chair of the Minister of Foreign Affairs you were practically on the other side of the barricade as one of the customers of the intelligence that such services as the SIE collect. Has this experience helped you in any way?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Of course my activity as Minister of Foreign Affairs – a direct customer of the Foreign Intelligence Service’s products – has proved very useful. When I was appointed to this position, my previous experience helped me to better understand the intelligence needs of the political decision-maker and thus to better calibrate and steer the efforts of the service, i.e. to provide relevant, updated, actionable information. In the absence of valuable information, the political decision-making finds itself in need. At a personal level, to have access to the hidden, discreet side of knowledge and global political practice is intellectually enriching. A lot of questions are answered; a lot of uncertainties get cleared. For me it is obviously a privilege and a great honor.

Interviewer: The law on the functioning of the SIE is obsolete, drafted more than a decade ago when the domestic and foreign context was completely different. How does this influence the activity of the Service?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: The legislation that guides us is partially obsolete which first and foremost holds true for the Law on national security and less for the Law on the organization of the SIE. It is a wide-known fact that we have witnessed a structural change of the foreign threats posed to Romania’s national security during this past decade. Obviously, when the Law no.1/1998 was drafted, this reshuffle could not be taken into account. We need a legal framework able to provide us with all the necessary instruments to do our job and undoubtedly back them up with the parliament and legal control mechanisms characteristic of the rule of law. On the other hand, 2009 finds us involved in the Euro-Atlantic security system which binds us to meet certain common legal and professional standards. It is this need to legally outline these partnership formulas inherent in our EU and NATO membership that makes for one of the main reasons for us to argue the adoption of a new national security legislative package.

The cooperation with our partners is operational; it has grown into a routine and constantly yields results. Nevertheless, it would be useful if it is underpinned by a law adapted to the current context rather than laws as old as 1992 when Romania was still pondering over the choice of a Euro-Atlantic strategic definition. Furthermore, although it entered into force in 1998, the SIE Law is the most recent legislative document in the field of national security and it has answered the constitutional imperatives of clearly outlining the competences of the intelligence services. That is why the main reason for concern is to adapt the law to the foreign context rather than the domestic one. Inside the country an espionage service has very limited powers that are anyway circumscribed to its role of collecting foreign intelligence relevant to national security. It is the preserve of the homeland security service – in our case, the SRI – to conduct intelligence-gathering activities on the national territory. In the end, the goal is the same, but the different ways in which we achieve it assigns the proper tones to each component of the institutional security architecture. We are actually talking about applying the Western model of specialized intelligence services after the failure of 50 years of centralized intelligence work focused in the hands of one single authority. The Securitate that gathered both the political police and the DIE under the same roof completely and permanently ceased to exist in 1989.

Interviewer: What are the SIE’s personnel selection procedures and what qualities should a future spy have?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: First of all, you need adaptive behavior and sound general knowledge that would allow you to position yourself almost anywhere in a relevant environment. This is one of the particular features of this type of career alongside, of course, the willingness to bear the legal regime of constraints, the limitations of your own liberties. Secondly, the work itself inside the system is very interesting, is equally spectacular and risky. The webpage of the institution describes the recruitment policy. There you can find the benchmarks a candidate should meet and the application he/she has to fill in if the intention to apply for a job with the SIE is genuine. The general employment benchmarks include, apart from general knowledge, a foreign language – rare ones even, and PC literacy, discretion, adaptability, flexibility, composure, qualities and abilities to easily create and cultivate personal relationships. However, the selection procedure is extremely tough. Out of 1,000 applicants that submit their CVs in a hope to join the SIE, only 8 enter the preliminary training session by the end of which we are left with just five, four or none. And it is only then when the applicants start the inside, the real training.

Interviewer: What is the SIE’s situation in point of human, material and legal resources as compared to other EU services?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Fortunately, a service’s logistics is not the only thing that gives the measure of its effectiveness. It is the professionalism of its people, which is proved and recognized not only by our domestic customers, but also by the allied structures. This trust takes shape both in the number of working foreign partnerships and our membership in all exclusivist clubs of the intelligence services. I cannot say that I am satisfied with the outdated legal framework within which we operate or the budget resources allotted to us. But it makes me even more satisfied that we can provide our customers with quality intelligence products in the limit of available resources. There is a direct causal relationship between the quantity of invested resources and the quality of the finite product. Poor financing, exhausted budget cut down to the mere survival level triggers a drop in the quality of the activity. A service can work in any budget context but we must decide what expectations we have and take responsibility for the result. Hypothetically speaking, if you have a budget worth 1 Euro, the direct value of the information will be 1 Euro as well. And this value is, actually, the value you attach to national security. When you have 1,000 Euros, the quality of the intelligence is significantly improved, and the national security enjoys a higher quality effort. In times of crisis, the services should increase their operational capability exactly because the number of threats posed to national security multiples.

Interviewer: Does SIE cooperate with other similar institutions from abroad?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Playing alone is no longer possible. Our membership to the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union marked the integration of the Foreign Intelligence Service in a family of services that share the same goals and structures. We share information with them, we communicate with them directly and we speak the same professional language. In this environment of ours, you can build trust as a guarantee of institutional dialogue gradually, in time. As the partnership comes of age you can even think of joint operations. The great benefit of being a part of this family, of this effective system of collective security derives from sharing the benefits of a stable and sound system and of responsibility in constantly safeguarding the security of our countries. The foreign intelligence services check their affinities – in the sense of their professionalism – through their membership in restricted professional clubs. And the SIE is proud to say that it has been accepted as a member of these clubs that include agencies with a longstanding tradition and exquisite professionals, with resources vastly greater than ours, and this membership meant the acknowledgment of the real, modern qualities of effectiveness and professionalism that our Service is endowed with.

We have proved that we can successfully face the challenges of a complex, competition-driven, unceasingly and sometimes unexpectedly changing environment.

Interviewer: People talk a lot these days about the reform of the services. What would this reform mean for the SIE and what is the status of its implementation?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Romania’s NATO and EU membership triggered a change in the institutional paradigm, which is broadly called the reform of the SIE. Actually, the SIE reform has meant deconstructing the whole structure and rebuilding it along a Western matrix. The process started in 2001 and completed in 2006–2007. The depth and magnitude of the changes has justified the duration. We have succeeded in focusing the activity on priority lines defined by the strategic planning concepts and in rapidly shifting focus on relevant issues, areas and countries, according to short or long-term priorities. The leadership level has been profoundly renewed with the appointment of legitimate leaders legitimized by their professional experience and credibility, leaders that the system knew and acknowledged, leaders that had a quantifiable career and were promoted according to transparent criteria. All these are also arguments against the fear that is sometimes expressed about the alleged political implication of the intelligence services. I am at the helm of an institution that is far away from political interference and that is not about to endanger its national and international credibility by engaging in internal politics, which is actually illegal and unconstitutional. The reform has not confined itself to changing the organizational chart. It has targeted processes, mechanisms, mentalities in such a way that we have now come to the moment when partner organizations appoint the SIE as reform mentor for other intelligence services in Europe. One goal has not been achieved so far, but it lies in the realm of the legislative authority: changing to civilian status. Demilitarization depends on the Parliament adopting the Intelligence Officer Statute.

Interviewer: After January 1, 2007, Maramureş became the border between the EU and Ukraine. What dangers loom against Romania from the ex-Soviet territory?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: The risks and threats posed to our national security are very well and extensively described and explained in our fundamental strategic document – Romania’s National Security Strategy. On the other hand, we have to be aware that these kinds of asymmetric threats do no longer have a geographical point of origin that can be precisely pinpointed. They are not felt by Romania alone, but by the entire European and Euro-Atlantic territory. Particular attention is required by the dangers posed by transnational crime – illegal networks of drug, human or weapon trafficking, illegal migration, etc. – because the human consequences of this phenomenon are felt throughout the society. A telling example is Afghanistan – the world’s largest opium producer.

The destinations of illegal trafficking in this drug include the European states, while the routes used are various – either northwards via Central Asian states, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Hungary and then reaching West-European markets, or southwards – via South Caucasus, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary. The economic and social consequences of illegal drug trafficking are difficult to compute, but the impact is nevertheless huge and addresses all ages or professions. Fighting transnational organized crime, alongside non-proliferation, is a fundamental concern for the Euro-Atlantic espionage services and even more so for us considering Romania’s geostrategic position on the eastern borderline of the European Union and NATO. The geographic proximity of the dangers that threaten and can affect us forces us to be on constant alert. The Foreign Intelligence Service, together with other national security system components and our foreign partners are concerned with thwarting these new asymmetric risks on a day-by-day basis. Although they cannot be disclosed, the Service’s achievements in this area are real.  

Interviewer: Does SIE have powers in cases of rights infringement against Romanians abroad (e.g., Republic of Moldova, Italy – discrimination cases, etc.)?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: The protection of Romanian citizens abroad is the preserve of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who exercises its consular function precisely in order to assist Romanians abroad. Therefore, it is compulsory for the MFA to get involved in the relation with Romanian citizens abroad. Furthermore, within the European Union, other national bodies with complementary competences, such as the ministries of interior, have established partnerships on the basis of the common interest of mutually protecting their citizens.