The Ministry of Education passes the buck to Oprea in the refugee issue

In a response addressed to BURSA, the Ministry of Education says that the request to the School Inspectorates concerning the inventorying of the lodging areas in order to receive immigrants and refugees has been sent by the National Committee for Special Emergency Situations, led by deputy prime-minister Gabriel Oprea. The press office of the institution said the following: "The Ministry of Education and Scientific Research does not have any type of competences/duties in managing the immigrant situation nor when it comes to public communication on the matter. Like any other institution of the state, the MECS is required to respond to the requests of the National Committee for Special Emergency Situations, like in this particular case, when it has sent within the system, to the universities and the county school inspectorates, a request concerning potential housing capabilities".

In other words, the Ministry of Education is telling us to go ask Mr. Oprea for explanations concerning this request which caused a wave of surprise among the public, and which even surprised Liviu Dragnea, causing him to publicly wonder what "was going through the mind" of minister Sorin Cîmpeanu when he made the inventorying in question.

Mr. Gabriel Oprea was kind of hard to find on the phone, and he made no statements for the press, and his absence from an event was explained by secretary of state in the Ministry of Internal Affairs Bogdan Tohăneanu by the fact that the former had to urgently leave town.

The disagreement between Liviu Dragnea and his subordinate in the party, Education minister Sorin Cîmpeanu, is not the first to emanate from the Romanian political and institutional environment when it comes to the immigrants issue. Bogdan Tohăneanu, secretary of state in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the parliamentarians of the European Affairs Commissions "currently, there is no migration pressure on Romania's borders".

On the other hand, less than two weeks ago, Gabriel Oprea, deputy prime-minister in charge of national security and minister of Internal Affairs, in other words the hierarchical head of Bogdan Tohăneanu, summoned the National Committee for Special Emergency Situations, to "assess the risks concerning the possible security impact as a result of the rise in the immigration phenomenon on Romania's borders".

Why is this summoning for understanding the situation which the authorities are avoiding to discuss? Because the address of the Ministry of Education mentions the summoning of the Special Emergency Situations Committee, mentioning Decision no. 2/2015 - " concerning the enacting of the courses of action to handle the immigration phenomenon on Romania's borders", as the justification for the shocking request sent to the education inspectorates and to the universities.

Essentially, the Ministry of Education is passing the buck on the issue of refugees to deputy prime-minister Gabriel Oprea.

The origin of the idea to host immigrants inside schools is more important than who tried to implement it. In order to determine who came up with this idea, which ended up on the government's desks without anybody from the state apparatus being consulted,- student organizations, parent associations, education unions - BURSA addressed a number of questions yesterday to the Ministry of Education, concerning potential connection between address in question and the meeting of the National Committee for Special Emergency Situations of August 27th, 2015.

Based on the response of the MECS, it can easily be inferred that it wasn't the idea of Education minister Sorin Cîmpeanu to lodge immigrants in areas of the education institutions, and in fact the institution he is in charge of felt the need to specify that it was only responding to an expressly formulated request of the Committee for Emergency Situations, which is led by Gabriel Oprea.

The proposal made yesterday by the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, concerning the supplementation of the number of immigrants redistributed across the Union, means that Romania is being asked to accept 4646 people, instead of the voluntarily agreed upon quota of 1785 people. This sudden hike fully validates the opinion expressed by deputy Ana Birchall, in Tuesday's debate in the Parliament's Palace, who said that "the European Commission is playing the game under the table, at the expense of the member states, where the immigrant crisis is concerned.

Bu the problem is that the secrecy of the decision-making process, so loved by Mr. Jean Claude Juncker and at its core, very close to the sarcastic style of Bucharest's mayor Sorin Oprescu, has also carried over to Bucharest, as proven by the recent gaffe of the Ministry of Education, which had in fact started from the National Committee for Special Emergency Situations, in complete contradiction with the elementary rules of anti-terrorist protection.

Not one immigrant or refugee of the number that have been set for relocation has arrived in Romania yet, and already our institutions are committing blunders, which are not confined to communication, rather they seem to be from the get go conceptual mistakes on how the situation will be handled. Sure, the Romanian tradition of the miraculous resolution of the situation, through fierce, last-minute efforts may be confirmed once again. But this time, the chaos in Bucharest is also the result of the Machiavellian pressure coming from Brussels, where the "plebeians''" wishes no longer matter. Between the hammer of the European Commission and the hard place of the ever swelling immigrant quota, Romania could get burned with more than just a few sparks.