Dear Prime Minister,
Your speech Touched me NOT!
Starting with what unites us, namely the common belief that for all the European nations, including Romania, belonging to the „European Community means a better life for hundreds of millions of citizens, social security and cohesion, guaranteed rights and freedoms, but also taking into account another principle which is as important as what is stated in your report on behalf of the Romanian Government, the Ministers and the Permanent Representation, namely the right of the citizens to know the truth and to be transparently informed about the reality in which their existence develops and which influences them, consciously or not, but certainly directly, the quality of life, I consider that some corrections, and concrete examples, known or unknown to the signatory decision-makers of the self-imposed statement are necessary.
The representatives of the Romanian state have considered all the aspects successes, in record time, to the advantage of all the partner countries of this common project, the European Union, but unfortunately, the counter-examples reveal an opposite reality of a country whose representatives assume through an open letter the consolidation of the aforementioned principles for the good of the whole of Europe.
And if this is the actual reality that reveals itself, after only two months, by the other EU countries, it means that you have managed to discriminate your own citizens who probably don’t see any evolution in guaranteeing elementary civil rights in relation to state institutions.
1. In terms of ,,promoting digitization, innovation and connectivity,, despite the fact that Romania is perceived as a pioneer in the field, being on the verge of implementing the 5G technology, the major discrepancy between perception and reality is a huge one.
A simple visit, perhaps on the occasion of the open gates’ day at the Romanian Police, will convince you that the IT equipment, starting from police computers, can easily be mistaken for an exhibition in a museum of technology history. The computers used here are the most varied, as they have been obtained in time from various sources, including the well-known personal donations of clerks, which makes them resemble their ancestor in Antikythira more than the systems that should be compatible with 5G communication technology.
We might overlook the technology, given that we, Romanians, are accustomed to fixing things with a „wire and a screwdriver” just like we do with the old cars Dacia 1310, in order to move on. However, the most painful aspect is correlated to information technology. In this area, the mentality of implementing and using an efficient workflow goes hand in hand with the attitude of the managers who, despite their young age, still considered the laptop a decoration item. Yes, because from a certain level above, in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), you get a laptop.
Yet, as these devices are the latest technology, equipped with Windows 10, they are not compatible with the token needed in order to perform trivial checks in different databases, or with no sense applications, which are implemented just to add another brick to the „bureaucratic wall” which is already suffocating enough both for the beneficiary and the clerk.
In other cases, access to technology is given only to a few people, very few, who should perform the checks for everybody else which sometimes leads to situations when people have to wait in the queue. The reality of the 1990s, faithfully depicted in the romanian movie „Politist Adjectiv” (Adjective Police) from 2009, is, unfortunately, still present in 2019, in the Romanian Police.
Turning back to the managerial vision of implementing the benefits of technology in terms of cost-effectiveness (time, money, etc.), this is for example incompatible with tools such as Outlook (present in the internal communication network and only one or two (yet) remaining specialists in the support department know how much they struggle to make it compatible and integrated). However, the chiefs cling to the feudal hierarchy style, in which cohorts of workers from various structures/departments stand with the anteroom for hours to get even the most common correspondence approved by the ‘big boss’.
If we talk about „peripherals” and „consumables”, then the problem is even more complicated, and although the lobby is not (yet) officially regulated in Romania, it works through exclusivity, according to personal affinities or after a couple of months of humble request and three or four reports dismissed by inertia. And even if you are only asking for a simple scanner or shredder, for the huge volume of papers managed, for example, by a subunit such as Economic Crime Investigation, only repetitive personal insistence, waiting with the report in hand in front of the boss’s door, will perhaps allow you to access the „budget article” from the level of the secondary orderer/person in charge of credits, because the tertiary already has an empty treasury by July/August.
This may also be due to the way in which the offices of support department chiefs are fashionably furnished or the way in which the repairs of Logan cars have been paid as if they were Mercedes cars. The same problems could be detailed and extended toward other systems, such as the fiscal system, the medical system, or the education system, but given that these are many and vast, we may analyze these issues when discussing another report, a separate one dedicated only to this chapter which was acknowledged as resolutely solved by all Member States, according to the public statement.
2. Regarding the „upgrading of the legal framework for copyright„, this is certainly connected precisely to the technological development (emphasized in the previous chapter) mainly because both for the right holders and for users, the legal insecurity regarding the usage of creations, works and other objects protected in the digital environment, mainly the cross-border ones (regulated by obviously different rules) continues to exist and to escalate, but in Romania, law enforcement is different, more precisely, in total opposition with the stated direction.
Taking as an example the same domain, which is too familiar to the author of this criticism, from an area delimited in terms of the material and territorial competences of the Romanian Police (not alone obviously, but in collaboration with other existing bodies and required by the legislation and collaboration protocols or customs to ensure that the regulations are respected and restored), it would be interesting to know that, in fact, the vision of the police managers in this broad spectrum which ranges from the issues that will shortly be raised by the complaints generated by the changes brought in responsibilities according to the intense debates on the Articles 11 or 13 of the respective Directive, and the continuous need for a sustained upgrading of the specialists’ skills and knowledge on criminal law or offenses, usually within the department of Economic Crime Investigation, is that the only known action plan is based on common effort, which uses „increased and mixed” forces to descend upon the only form of „complex criminality” known and perpetuated from boss to boss, among interest groups so that they can finally, triumphantly announce in the media, the success of their endeavor to combat „unfair competition” or „intellectual theft”, quantified in 2-3 fines.
However, at the moment, the specialists (who in fact was only one in Timiş county), have also left, tired of the managerial view on economic criminality investigation, and moved to another department which is adjacent to the main mission of the Romanian Police, where the working conditions seem a little farther from the notion of slavery.
In such situations, we invoke the eternal ‘orientation ability’, praised or loathed by the senior bosses in the ministry, depending on the purpose, so that the staff have been backed up by „specialists” from another Police Departments, the proximity agencies. I hope that no one, including the proximity agent, doubts their ,,extensive knowledge,, of cryptocurrency, ,,virtual machines,, and other such techniques used in order to avoid purchasing software licenses (such as those for design, for example, etc.), but also the knowledge required in many other areas.
In fact, the citizen’s indulgence with any official appointed from the boss’s pen, as a specialist, must be complete, in a context in which, in 2014-2015, not even one man in the entire interior ministry thought of asking why they are still buying and installing (for a price of approx. 30 million dollars) keys to an operating system that would no longer be maintained by the owner because the mainstream support would end after just a few months, given that, in any country the national security information, public order and national safety system should represent a much greater concern, just like any other critical system (such as the energy system etc.).
In order to cast away any doubts, the rhetoric of police managers in the field of copyrights is limited to the origin of jeans or CDs in areas such as public markets (Brancoveanu or Flavia, well-known for almost 30 years in the western part of the country as the utmost expression of the type of capitalism established and perpetuated at a large scale, both locally and throughout Romania, after the revolution).
3. Regarding the concerns and actions that have been fairly taken for all EU citizens, for ,,a less polluting environment” , studying the success in the field, related to : the implementation of „aerodynamic cabins on the transport market. These cabins will save fuel, improve visibility, safety and comfort for drivers and they will increase safety for other people in the traffic” , in the Western part of the country, as in the rest of Romania, we are at the stage of worrying about road safety due to the present (in)existence of compliant roads and, given the Romanians’ perception from the perspective of the #șieu (#MeToo) civic movement of 1 m of highway, I believe it’s needless to add anything else.
But coming back to the area chosen for exemplification, the West of the country, respectively a county which is usually looked upon in an inspiring way by others, some punctual environmental examples can’t be ignored.
Thus, only in Romania, a sanitation operator can deliver an uncompliant landfill in written, to a single clerk from the County Council, almost as an individual, just to avoid the legal obligations for closure and monitorization after closure for 30 years. This happened despite the numerous complaints of the citizens and environmental civic organizations, all worried about the complicitous carelessness of the representatives of the authorities in the field, in relation to the risks and effects on the population’s health.
4. Regarding the totally unfounded assertions, at least in Romania’s case, concerning the concrete ,, steps taken to protect the rights of the workers, the directive that will ensure greater predictability and clarity in terms of working conditions, there are rules that will benefit millions of European workers. The work-life balance directive for parents and carers with a major contribution to promoting gender equality or the regulations on reducing exposure to carcinogens in the workplace – these are regulations that meet the current challenges encountered at a European Union level. ” , please, Prime Minister, I would like to draw your attention regarding the current situation of workers’ rights and working conditions in the MIA perpetuated, indeed, through the „previous” visions on the field, and which can be expressed in a synthetic way by the fact that we are still perceived as the country where the „toilet is located outside the house, in the back yard” with a hallucinating percentage for a 2019 country in Europe.
Yes, I don’t even know how to say it more clearly, if not even the competent minister knows yet that, due to her subordinated specialists, in the MIA the work capacity evaluations, which are normally annual in the other sectors, are not carried out and documents that under no circumstances should lack in a modern European employment relationship, such as the aptitude sheet, which is applied uniformly on the territory of Romania (and has been present for a couple of years now, in almost every industrial hall around Timisoara) is just a rare occurrence in MIA, as if it were a mere whim of the human resources department.
Such a certificate of work capacity is issued only when the paraph, and not the evaluation or the expertise of the occupational medicine experts, is absolutely necessary.
For the entire MIA staff, of which only police officers represent around 54,000 people, the employer thought that just one (or sometimes two, maximum 3, occupational medicine doctors) is enough. Perhaps this is also due to the fact that the MIA has ordered that the doctors of each unit coincide with occupational medicine professionals when, in fact, they are at the same time also family physicians.
Yes, in case you didn’t know, the unit doctors are ,,bipolar persons”, in the MIA’s view. So, they can give you the right to a 7-day sick leave and then move on the opposite side of the desk and maybe cut 2 -3 days, because they also represent the interest of the employer who wants you back at work as soon as possible.
Moving forward to the foreseeability, clarity and transparency invoked in terms of working conditions, how is it possible for a MAI worker not to receive a coherent answer after 8 months from the employer who, on the other hand, requests him be condescending and in turn answer fully and fairly in accomplishing the 30-day workload to any petitioner?
This may also happen because also in terms of the so-called consolidation of the „rules on the reduction of exposure to carcinogenic factors at work„, in Romania’s MIA, action may be circumscribed to the same managerial carelessness triggered by the sickness perpetuation of superficiality, not only by the copy-pasting communist reports of „fulfilling the Five-Year Plan in 3 years”.
Thus, although the management of a subunit that should manage the health and safety of more than 1,500 people, finds it inappropriate to explain and, more importantly, to remedy a situation which is contrary from any point of view (first of all, according to the Romanian legislation), that of having additional sources of radiation at the workplace, namely the private antennas of a telecom operator, as all the representatives of the public institution are playing roles in different committees in which they are appointed by officials which were employed in a totally non-transparent, but especially inappropriate and unrepresentative manner (all being managers who only maintain the guidelines of the employer’s representative and not that of the masses of executors), in supporting both the interests of the employer and those of the employees.
If we also add the fact that the regional and sectorial medical authority which is rightfully entitled but also obliged, to make an assessment, to be aware of the incidence perhaps well above the general average of the serious pathologies identified in the workplace, it has no more attitude elaborate than an old lady who just stays wondering that one more coffin had passed in front of her, you will have the exact picture of the surrounding reality in which some employees are living and working.
It would be helpful to explain to all police officers whether, in the context of recovery of work capacity, they can still refer to the military medical system as an integral and binding managing part of a force of action trained in the general mobilization process, or each one can be evaluated, treated and cured based on the fortune they have in meeting a professional doctor in any part of the country or the world or any other „feldsher”, who’s authorized, as a complementary or alternative specialist by the Romanian state (when nowadays, you can’t even trust a public clerk’s degree), a specialist who might wrap their bodily wounds and especially their spiritual wounds caused by so much bitterness fueled by the improbability of the employer.
Because we are dealing with an institution, we can’t ask for empathy, which is specific to the individual and which in most cases lacks in the representatives appointed according to other filters and criteria.
But we could at least ask for minimum respect for the medical service which is still stipulated as free of charge from all points of view as stated in the Police Officer’s Statute, which would bring us a bit closer to those standards of protected and guaranteed rights you were talking about in your report. Finally, I don’t believe that asking for money on Facebook whenever a cop needs specialized treatment to recover from the coma and the paralysis caused by a mobster while serving his country for which he has submitted a sworn oath or a traffic warden is intentionally hit by the car of an antisocial person or a colleague is diagnosed with a malignancy, is part of any European worker rights regulation.
5. Regarding the „exceptional outcome in the field of energy … for the consolidation of the EU’s energy security„, the perspective taken in approaching reality should be sought in state actions through the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) , in case this institution still belongs to the state authority …if it ever belonged to it.
Just like the major privatizations have taken place in the field of energy (there is no time to go into further details at the moment) after major universal service and public utilities concession companies in the field of energy distribution have been exempt from paying the entire price (not blocking important liquidity on important transactions) in the face of the development and expansion of the distribution networks received for exploitation, for tens of millions of euros, ANRE, the institution which should have defended the state’s interests, found it appropriate to protect the blackmail strategy of distribution operators to the detriment of simple citizens or even institutions and local authorities which could have developed and expanded energy distribution capacities on Romanian money, critical infrastructure then ceded for free to the concessionary operators.
Basically, in the field of transport energy infrastructure, we’ve not only been allowed to build, as individual Romanian citizens, anywhere between one meter to full kilometers of network, unlike road infrastructures, but we were even bound by the ANRE guidelines and directives to such investments.
ANRE was ,,more generous” than CNAIR, so, to the first, Romanians even showed gratitude because they have given us the opportunity to build and donate „electric highways” to some entities that, upon departure, will want to be paid, the second time by Romanians in order to put them back in the state’s possession. Nonetheless, at least they’ve implemented a button on the Ministry of Energy website in order to protect the anonymity of those who send integrity alerts in the field.
6. Some important explanations are also necessary regarding the fact that we are ensured that : the „Romanian Presidency has completed the dossier on the new rules ensuring that the products placed on the single market are safe and in compliance with the health, consumer protection, environmental protection and public safety legislation„.
And as always, the details should come from some of your ministers – agriculture and police, as in the internals (and the other security structures should be abstaining, at least this time, if they cannot help themselves and look at their own problems, at least not to bother those who want to do something).
Regarding the subject of the specification, the answer would be the following: The same legislation applies to the products introduced on the unique market directly from the clandestine abattoirs in the areas around Timisoara, such as com Giroc, s.a. which is the place that has been providing meat, milk products etc. to the citizens of the western part of the country for years without complying with minimum food safety regulations?
This is not about ignorance, because most regulation and control authorities in the field know them very well. The big problem is that some of them have been living for years in perfect symbiosis with some of the so-called agricultural producers, due to particular interests which satisfy both parties, even if sometimes the situation tends to get out of control.
Thus, not even when „producers” conceal outbreaks of infectious animal diseases such as bovine leucosis or African fever in pigs, the diluted authority in the area which is quite familiar even to other two former colleagues of yours (Prime Ministers), can no longer replace the rule of law, when you can no longer find any independent institution that can restore a little bit of order (the Romanian solution to tackling huge delinquencies), because the promotions in key positions within the control institutions are guided by the same occult interests which support the perpetuating sense of obscurity and randomness.
If you publicly asked for more details, if you don’t know them by now, the other Europeans, who were redeemed after only two months of Romanian governance, would probably be horrified by the „evil ingenuity”, but we, the Romanians who still believe in European, democratic values are not ok with being „remembered in contemporary history as barbarians.”
7. Regarding the success of establishing at European level: „new rules aimed at reducing risks in the EU banking sector. These measures will ensure that the banking sector has sufficient capital to safely provide loans to individuals and legal entities, while taxpayers are protected against any difficulties the banks may face„- here, things are equally serious such as meat, cheese or milk contaminated or infested with leucosis or pestilence in the plate of a preschool from a kindergarten in Timisoara or of an interned patient or, why not, of a prisoner incarcerated on ,,Popa Sapca”
However, given that in the financial-banking area things are more complex, (another resigning former prime minister, the third, is more able to advise you on this matter, although he now appears to be in the „opposite party”) they should be treated with utmost responsibility because any incomplete statement or action, such as the ones currently taken by your counselor (by the way, I hope that he won’t also be the strategist who will define the future multiannual budget of the Union) in which only the convenient half of the truth is asserted, while the hidden part regards the same government figures who brought Romania in a position we should obviously recover from (at least until we reach an acceptable European average level in terms of the cost of loans for individuals or local economic agents) may put the aforementioned people in a position of alleged victims, ordinary citizens, who won’t even have a plate, let alone food on it.
8. If we were to rely on the „Europe Safety Pillar„, the citizens’ safety is also at the center of the actions that we have undertaken and which we will continue to take in the rotating presidency mandate„, then, allow me to make it clearer: at the moment, the sense of insecurity is not caused by mobsters who have always lived and who will continue to live among us, pursuing their own interests, for the worse or the better, but from the State itself, perceived as the biggest enemy of the Romanian citizens, who feel that they have been sold for far too little by representatives who were elected (or not) by the people.
9. „Strengthening the protection of the external borders of the Union … which … is a priority objective” for you. So, you could ask (via the same minister) the current head of the Romanian Police, how many times the head of the Romanian Border Police (a position he has also held) has had bilateral meetings with his Serbian counterpart starting 2007 (when we were accepted in EU) and at least until 2014 because the neighbors said that no such meeting took place in this interval.
In order to understand why other states have been more readily accepted in Schengen, even with a less elaborate technical implementation plan (without losing time with details such as the individual interests of the „evaluator”), the essence of a strong state is the answer, which relies on no other than the adequate human resource in terms of professionalism but more importantly of impartiality and a correct attitude towards the intended service.
And now, please imagine that instead of being concerned by the security of the external borders, some officials use advanced technology such as thermal imaging cameras to hunt wild boars, a fact which we could perhaps regard as a simple disciplinary misconduct, but which defies the mentality of a system that does not have the power to reform effectively when there is little care about how human resources are selected, which is, more than ever, a tributary of PCR (abbreviation of the former communist Romanian party as Bribes, Relationships, Knowledge).
I think I have also approached the point you expressed about the progress in migration, because from 2010, when the great moves that led to the realm of promise started: Europe, the MIA no longer understood the Romanian language and the symbolism words like ,,EXODUS”, but more importantly, completely ignored the expertise of the subordinate specialists, now investing with the greatest appreciation for the merits of the fixed homeland … the cops’ chefs. (For what reason? I think it is obvious to anyone: the narrow vision and the violation of the Timis County Police Command Act, unfortunately, the counter-exertion of the same external forces that seem invisible to the state authority).
Concluding with „the central objective according to which the Romanian Government has defined its priorities is increasing the citizens’ confidence in the European project by maintaining unity, cohesion and solidarity as fundamental elements.” , my opinion is that, however, the solution to attaining these goals is testing the system’s „resilience” to the shock of change by identifying procedures or, even better, people who are capable of correctly evaluating the human resource in order to bring forward the much-anticipated reform whose first quality is impartiality, followed by professionalism, experience and the will to pursue the common good in the detriment of the individual or the group’s benefit.
The only aspect on which I totally agree with you, is the moto of the presidency itself: „cohesion, a common European value”, but because of the different filters through which we see common value, and we also think differently in this regard, we will create the impression that the values in question such as patriotism can take different forms, when, in fact, things are as simple as possible, maybe because for over 2000 years our ancestors have perceived them in one single way, until now.
Nonetheless, as you said, it is a „milestone balance report and I am fully confident that we will continue at the same pace, and at the end of the six months of our mandate, we will come forward as a presidency of efficiency and quality, that achieved the expected results for a better life for all European citizens„, we, the Romanians, European citizens, are looking forward to your final judgment at the end of the mandate.
I Thank you for giving me the opportunity of a public debate, although I would have preferred the counter-argumentation in a judicial setting, but since justice has also become concerned with other issues than finding out the truth, the only remaining option, for the moment, is writing open letters which are intermediated by the jury who, in the end, is most entitled to a decision (and maybe also to subsequent attitude, not just a simple verdict): the citizens!
Sincerely yours,
Romanian Police Officer
Adrian Papa