A sum of €98 million is still needed for completing the police reform. Negotiations are held with the European Union for obtaining this money. Deputy Minister of the Interior Serghei Diaconu, in a press club meeting at IPN, organized by the Foreign Policy Association (APE), said that according to the Ministry of the Interior’s projections, the €98 million would enable to completely modernize the Ministry and its subdivisions.
Serghei Diaconu underlined that the authorities didn’t only plan certain measures, but also calculated the amounts needed to finish the reform. The 2014 state budget includes a sum of 1.7 billion lei intended for the Ministry of the Interior. More than 700 million lei will go to pay salaries and pensions. After paying other planned costs, only 400 million lei remains for reforming the Ministry. The Ministry obtained €20 million from the EU in support, but still needs another €98 million.
At the end of the reform, the police officers will be paid higher salaries so as to combat corruption among the police. The central apparatus of the Ministry was completely demilitarized. But some of the divisions continue to include employees with military ranks, but these ranks are needed for performing search operations, for giving orders, etc.
Serghei Diaconu also said that the Ministry and its subdivisions last year needed 1,500 employees. The shortage was reduced to 700. This year, there will be reformed the Police Academy. For the first time, the reform enabled graduates of other higher education institutions than the Police Academy to apply for posts at the Ministry and its subdivisions.
“We cannot do reforms overnight. In Austria, the police reform started in 2005 and is to end in 2015. In Georgia, the reform started in 2004 and the changes started to be seen in 2008. We plan to do the reform in three years. We should not forget that de facto the reform in Moldova started last March,” said the deputy minister.
Foreign Policy Association executive director Victor Chirila, who made public the results of the study “APE recommendations for the reform of the Ministry of the Interior in 2014”, said the results of the implemented reforms are already felt, but the authorities are yet to work hard to make them efficient. The study was made by the APE with the support of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and East Europe Foundation, with financial resources from the Government of Sweden provided through the Swiss International Development Cooperation Agency and the Foreign Ministry of Denmark/DANIDA.
