Head of Romanian Intelligence Service resigns, citing “gesture of democratic health”

The head of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), Eduard Hellvig, announced on Monday, July 3, that he is ending his 8-year term as director of the agency. He was appointed to the position on March 3, 2015, at the proposal of president Klaus Iohannis.

“It is healthy for a director of services to have a limited mandate. It is a gesture of democratic health,” said Hellvig.

His duties will be taken over by his deputy, general Răzvan Ionescu.

During his departure speech, Hellvig recalled the report that SRI sent to the Parliament in 2022 presenting the ways in which the service transformed.

“I believe it is important for society and citizens to know that SRI has undergone major transformations in these years in order to act more efficiently and adapt to current challenges, to protect Romania. We are at the end of a very important process of reconfiguring all the components of SRI, both at the local and regional levels. It has been a process aimed at providing the institution with an integrated conceptual security system, as well as increasing its effectiveness in preventing and countering threats to national security,” he said, cited by Digi24.

According to the former director, SRI has become a modern, flexible, and less bureaucratic institution by reorganizing its territorial structure and by focusing on objectives of national security. Hellvig also noted the importance of separating the service he headed from the communist-era Securitate.

“The modernization of the institution has been accompanied by other steps that, over these years, have meant a separation from the legacy of the old Securitate, the introduction of courses on totalitarianism and democracy for new employees, and the complete transfer of archives to the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS). […] We cannot always look forward if we constantly return to the past to solve the unresolved problems of previous generations. We cannot always expect future generations to solve the problems that we have not solved,” he said.

During the same speech, Eduard Hellvig admitted to discussing his resignation with president Iohannis.

“It is a wrong custom in our country for those in positions of power to leave them only at the last moment, possibly forced to do so. Most of those in power do not relinquish it when they achieve their objectives, for various reasons. Personally, I believe that such a step is needed. It is primarily a gesture of democratic health, which I have unequivocally argued for since the first year of my mandate. It is healthy for democracy, for the balance of powers in the state, that an intelligence service director has a limited term in office. Stagnation in office is not good; it can lead to setting wrong objectives for the institution, losing touch with social reality, and confusing the function with the person who holds it,” the former SRI director said.