Police unions warn crime could go up as focus shifts to Romania’s EU Council presidency

Theft and robbery crimes could go up by as much as 20% as police staff get assigned to missions related to Bucharest high-level meetings while Romania holds the EU Council presidency, Digi24 reported. Thefts from homes, pickpocketing, robbery, or thefts from cars could go up by 20 – 25%, Dumitru Coarnă, the president of the National Union of Police Staff and Contractual Personnel, told Digi24. “The staff will be focused on the institutional area when the rotating presidency is taken over and, of course, the people will bear the lack of security. We take police staff from one part and bring them here,” he said. The decision to move some staff from outside of Bucharest to the capital was already taken but union representatives say this reduces the number of police staff in many counties without offering a backup. The Internal Affairs Ministry (MAI) will be tasked with at least 20 informal events attended by high officials, directors and agency heads of the EU. At the same time, the road police will be tasked with directing the route of the official motorcades. “For the road police it will be a challenge. They made great efforts so far to manage the various problems of systematization, lack of discipline in traffic… Now they have a new mission, to manage the official motorcades, besides the very crowded traffic,” Bogdan Toader, with the Road Police, told Digi24. MAI representatives said that Romania’s mission is well prepared and all alternatives have been taken into consideration so as to prevent an increase in the number of criminal offences. Romania has 240 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants, among the lowest numbers in the EU, according to Eurostat data quoted by Digi24. (Photo: Politia Romana on Facebook) editor@romania-insider.com