Nicoleta Pauliuc: "MApN didn't initiated any draft law regarding defense"

The Ministry of National Defense didn't initiated any normative act regarding the amendment of the laws in this field, nor regarding the preparation of citizens for defense, affirmed, yesterday, the liberal senator Nicoleta Pauliuc, the president of the Committee for Defense in the Senate, who specified that she does not exclude a meeting with the MApN leadership in the coming days.

Nicoleta Pauliuc declared: "At the beginning of each parliamentary session, as well as whenever the Defense Commission requests meetings with the Ministry of Defense - it is the relevant ministry that is under parliamentary control at the Defense Commission - these meetings take place. Tomorrow's meeting (ed. - today) was scheduled a week before to discuss the challenges, the need for legislative changes or other topics that the Ministry of Defense wants to bring up, or why not, topics that my colleagues they want to put them on the wallpaper. There is no decision to go to the Ministry of Defense tomorrow, because any request to travel the members of the commission is taken with approval in the meeting. We have a meeting tomorrow at 12:00. So, after we have this meeting and the colleagues will approve the trip to the Ministry of Defense, only then can we talk about a trip and a meeting with the Ministry of Defense and its representatives. In December when the budget was discussed and when Minister Tîlvăr was present, I expressly requested and asked the Minister, in fact every representative of the institutions that are under the parliamentary control of the Commission defense, if there is a need to amend the organizational laws or other legislative projects that we urgently need to introduce in Parliament, so that each ministry can fulfill its duties according to the law. I have not received any response that there is anything, an emergency in December. (...) There was never a request that was not resolved quickly, especially when we are talking about security".

Mrs. Pauliuc's statements take place in the context in which General Gheorghiţă Vlad, the Chief of the Defense Staff, stated last week in an interview given in the media that it is necessary to amend the law on the training of citizens for defense and it would be necessary to introduce a system of volunteer training for young people between the ages of 18 and 35. The Chief of the Defense Staff claimed in that interview that our country would need another 40,000 employed soldiers, in addition to the 80,000 currently existing in the Romanian Army.

Asked about the existence of any draft law on the above topics, Nicoleta Pauliuc added: "I am the president of the Defense Commission, I am a lawyer by profession, I cannot speak from sources, I am not aware of any draft law, I have were notified of any bill. If there is a draft law, I invite Minister Tîlvăr to send it to the Parliament, and here, together with colleagues, in emergency procedure, if we are asked for emergency procedure, we will fine him, if colleagues believe that he should be fined, but, from my point of view, there is every openness that, if the Ministry of Defense wants a legislative project that helps it to meet its objectives, very dearly".

With regard to the statements of the Chief of the Defense Staff, Nicolae Ciucă - the president of the Senate -, former prime minister and former minister of National Defense, showed that our country has never benefited from stronger and more consolidated security guarantees than those at present, but mentioned that there is a need to update the law on the preparation of the territory for defense, to the current conditions.