Nicușor Dan presents the National Defense Strategy in Parliament / Senators and deputies are to vote
The joint solemn meeting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate dedicated to the swearing-in of the President-elect of Romania, Nicusor Dan, at the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, May 26, 2025. Inquam Photos / George Călin
President Nicușor Dan will present, on Wednesday, November 26, before the senators and deputies, the National Defense Strategy, completed and approved by the CSAT. The Parliament is to debate and vote on it, in a joint session that will start at 14:00.
President Nicușor Dan is coming to the Parliament on Wednesday to present the National Defense Strategy to the senators and deputies. After being approved by the specialized committees of the Legislature, the Strategy will reach the plenary session, to be debated and voted on.
The head of state will not go to the Parliament alone, but with the members of the Government, according to an official announcement.
On November 25, CSAT analyzed and approved the final form of the Strategy, after spending 10 days in public debate and being supplemented with suggestions from civil society.
“The consolidated project of the Strategy was made publicly available, being the first National Defense Strategy to go through this stage as well. A good part of the recommendations received were integrated, resulting in the final version, analyzed today by the CSAT and which will be presented by the President of Romania to the Parliament, to be debated and approved, by decision, in a joint meeting of the two Chambers”, the Presidential Administration sent at the end of the CSAT meeting on Wednesday.
“The Romanian state must be prepared to manage the risks of a large-scale and long-lasting armed conflict near the borders”. Announcement after the meeting of the Supreme Council of Defense of the Country
What the National Defense Strategy provides
President Nicușor Dan publicly presented the National Defense Strategy for the first time on November 12.
“The public administration has some problems. (…) At this national level, the administration does not work with data. So there are many situations in which decisions are not based on data. We do not see a great appetite for collaboration between public institutions. Everyone sees their own little sectoral policy and, because of this, we do not have an integrated vision and, of course, also because of this, we do not have any desire of the people in the administration to innovate”, Nicușor Dan said then.
The national defense strategy of the country includes:
- “national security values, interests and objectives;
- evaluation of the international security environment;
- the potential risks, threats and vulnerabilities identified;
- strategic objectives and priorities in the field of defense;
- the directions of action and the main methods for ensuring Romania's national security in the field of defense”.
Corruption is listed in the “National Defense Strategy” under the “risks and vulnerabilities” chapter for Romania.
“Corruption deeply undermines the rule of law and affects the effectiveness of institutions and the well-being of the citizen, including increasing tax evasion and economic crime, with direct effects on the national economy, fair competition and economic freedom,” the document states.
Therefore, the strategy stipulates that “a national security objective” for Romania is “drastically limiting the phenomenon of corruption by coordinating the efforts of institutions, including the intelligence services”.
The document introduces three directions for “drastically limiting corruption”:
- integrated approach to the phenomenon, through the combined efforts of all;
- the involvement of intelligence services in the collection of data documenting possible acts of corruption, without their interference in the criminal investigation and the justice process;
- correcting the legislative and administrative mechanisms that delay the realization of the act of justice with regard to corruption, respecting the separation of powers in the state and constitutional norms.
The phenomenon of corruption is described in the document as a problem that “undermines the state, unforgivably weakens our defensive capacity, in a broad sense, and dilutes the pact of trust between institutions and citizens.”
Therefore, the secret services will have to get involved in the anti-corruption fight, but they will not intervene at all during the criminal investigation, the president emphasized. “The plan research activity is carried out by the prosecutor's office, judged by magistrates. Any interference is illegal.”
“They will make an overall picture of a corruption phenomenon and tell the prosecutor”, Nicușor Dan emphasized about the role that the SRI will play.
The limits that CCR imposed on SRI
The involvement of the secret services in the judicial act has been limited by a series of decisions that the Constitutional Court has made in the last decade.
In March 2016, the CCR established that the Romanian Intelligence Service cannot be involved in the criminal investigation activity, according to Free Europe.
In 2018 came another CCR decision which established that evidence obtained with the SRI technique must be excluded from criminal files.
In March 2019, the Constitutional Court analyzed the collaboration protocols concluded by prosecutors' offices with the SRI between 2009 and 2016. The judges then ordered that the evidence collected with the help of SRI officers until February 2016, the date of the first CCR decision, had to be annulled, if it had been obtained on the basis of these protocols.
In another 2020 decision, the CCR said that wiretapping is constitutional provided it provides human rights guarantees.
