Basescu To Announce Big Changes Next Week

The six months time limit President Traian Basescu set on assessing the efficiency of state institutions is very close.

Sources with the Presidency tell Jurnalul National that the show-down will take place next week. Then names for the new heads of the intelligence services will also be known.

On the other hand, sources close to Parliament state the big surprise will be that no one will lose one’s job at the helm.

It is quite possible though that these rumors are started by the very people with high stakes in the matter.

Fact is the intelligence services were the first to get the unequivocal thank you from Basescu after the release from captivity in Iraq of the three Romanian journalists.

Furthermore, the French President and PM also thanked Romanian authorities for their role in getting the release of the French journalist Florence Aubenas, which only adds credibility to the same intelligence services.

One name the sources named was Ion Mircea Plangu, deputy minister in the Ministry of Defense, in charge with defense polices. The National Liberal Party supported him for his nomination. Plangu will allegedly head the foreign intelligence service. Plangu is also a member of the Romanian Institute for Strategies Studies, along Constantin Degeratu, the presidential adviser on defense issues, and Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, the minister for foreign affairs.

Other likely candidates for heading the foreign intelligence service were Marcel Alexandru and Dan Chiriac, currently deputy directors of the service.

Alin Albu, a member of the Democrat Party and well trusted by Basescu, was deemed the likely leader of the counter intelligence service. Albu was in charge with the party finances during the last electoral campaigns the DP won, and was already screened and cleared for the job.

On the other hand, sources say Basescu asked for the screening to be performed on a larger number of people.

It may be a coincidence, but following this screening process Basescu warned publicly that his adviser, Dorin Iacob, was not his personal friend, as the latter boasted publicly.

Dorel Sandor, another person close to Basescu and alleged to lead one of the intelligence services in the future, has also a sort of a checkered past, as one of the people close to Silviu Brucan and the former Communist Party Academy.