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(2004/C 33 E/085)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0905/03

by José Ribeiro e Castro (UEN) to the Commission

(24 March 2003)

Subject:   Romania — access to the Securitate archives

In a report televised on 11 March 2003 the Euronews channel announced the Romanian Government's recent decision to stop the public from gaining access to the files of the former secret police, the Securitate. It seems that the new Romanian information service has made access difficult. The government also proposes dismantling the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS — Consiliului National de Styudiere a Arhivelor Securitatii) set up three years ago.

According to the same source around 3 000 people demonstrated in front of the Romanian Parliament to protest against these measures.

Can the Commission say:

Answer given by Mr Verheugen on behalf of the Commission

(22 April 2003)

Law No 187/99 ‘on individual access to one's own files and on the disclosure of the Securitate as a political police’ provided for the establishment of a National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS), which is governed by a board of 11 members appointed by the Romanian Parliament. The board can take decisions by simple majority, but with no less than eight members present. Members of the board can only be revoked by the Supreme Court. The CNSAS, among its various tasks, has to ensure the right of individual access to personal files, vet candidates to public offices and publish lists of persons who were agents or informers of the former secret police. In order to perform these tasks, the archives of the former secret police have to be made available to the CNSAS but, until they are fully transferred to the CNSAS premises, they remain under the control of the present information service (SRI).

It appears that since CNSAS was established in 2000, SRI has not handed over all the files requested or has transmitted allegedly incomplete files. The attitude of SRI has provoked a division within CNSAS, and its eventual deadlock, with five board members supporting the position of SRI and abstaining from participating to its activities.

In January 2003 the legal affairs committees of the two houses of Parliament appointed a joint subcommittee in order to find a solution to the deadlock. The report of the sub-committee, which was submitted in March, proposes that Parliament revoke all the current members of the board and appoint a caretaker board composed of the five board members who are at present abstaining.

The Commission has no comment to make on a specific domestic Romanian issue, especially when the situation is still evolving. However the principles of transparency and access to documents, the observance of legislation by public bodies and democratic control over police services are all relevant under the Copenhagen political criteria, which stipulate that membership of the Union requires ‘stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights ...’. The Commission will make a global review of Romania's progress towards accession in the light of the Copenhagen criteria in its Regular Report which it will adopt and publish in Autumn 2003.

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