Gabriel Vlase has been sworn in as Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) in a ceremony at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace. None of the Speakers of Parliament attended the event.
Liviu Dragnea and Calin Popescu Tariceanu were not present at the brief swearing-in ceremony, but Claudiu Manda, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, attended the event.
The head of the state wished the new SIE director success. ”I hope you come to the conclusion that you have made the correct decision by accepting,” the President told Vlase.
Social Democrat deputy Gabriel Vlase on Thursday tendered his resignation as MP with the Standing Bureau of Parliament, after being appointed SIE head. The joint Houses greenlighted on Wednesday Vlase as SIE director in a 341-31 vote.
Prior to that, Vlase had received the endorsement of the SIE Oversight Committee.
“I can’t say I have major objectives in the sense that radical changes must be made starting the next day. There are situations that have been dragging on for some years in what concerns the harmonising of legislation, because the legislation is fairly old, and the legislation is 20 years since the appearance of the law. Exactly 20 years. Meanwhile, Romania has become NATO member, with responsibilities in the European space too, and in the North Atlantic space. Firstly, the thing with harmonising the legislation. Secondly, the specific situations from the apparatus, because there are problems even there in what concerns the appointments, the benefits, if you want the side that concerns the side of the Service’s employees,” Gabriel Vlase stated after the confirmation hearing within the SIE Oversight Committee, explaining what his objectives at the helm of SIE will be.
On June 14, President Klaus Iohannis sent a letter to the Speakers of Parliament, nominating House lawmaker Petru-Gabriel Vlase (PSD) as Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu resigned the position in September 2016 and deputy director, General Silviu Predoiu has served as interim since September 26, 2016.
Gabriel Vlase is an 1996 graduate of the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute and subsequently he attended the advanced training program for high-rank public servants at the National Institute of Administration. In 2005 he completed the courses at the National Security College – the National Defence University. One year later he earned an MBA degree at the “Gheorghe Asachi” University of Iasi; he graduated from the Superior National Security College – National Intelligence Academy, and pursued the Marshall Center’s Senior Executive Seminar (SES) in Garmisch – Partenkirchen, Germany.
In 2007 he majored in “Armed conflicts analysis and resolution”, Georgetown University, and completed post-graduate studies at the Romanian Diplomatic Institute.
In 2010 Vlase earned a doctor’s degree in military and intelligence sciences from the National Intelligence Academy.
PSD leader explains why he was not present at Cotroceni when Vlase was sworn in: I had no reason to go there, to honour the invitation of a President who doesn’t observe the Constitution, who permanently attacks the party I lead
PSD President Liviu Dragnea has said he did not go at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace on Thursday, where Gabriel Vlase was sworn in as head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE), because he could not honour the invitation “of a President who doesn’t observe the Constitution” and who permanently attacks the PSD. He added that he did not want to be “part of a photo.”
“I had no reason to go there, to honour the invitation of a President who doesn’t observe the Constitution, who permanently attacks the party I lead. Who has no kind of reservations, who blocks the activity of Parliament. The President from whom we do not feel the desire for institutional collaboration. It’s not about any other wishes. A President who endorses criminal complaints for high treason against the Prime Minister, who asks the Prime Minister to resign and who says she’d better do what she was told, who takes part in talks on the financial programme and does not discuss with the Prime Minister or Parliament (…) why he goes somewhere, what he talks there, what verbal commitments [he takes], because otherwise he cannot respect them, he takes commitments on behalf of the Romanian state. And we concluded we have no reason to go there and to be part of a picture in which the SIE Director, who was voted by the Parliament of Romania, and that’s where he should have been sworn in, because that is the supreme body of this country. We voted for him, we supported him, we wish him success, it was enough. We have no reason to appear in this photo,” Liviu Dragnea said.
