The Apostle of helplessness. Why Predoiu must be replaced as Interior Minister

Interior Minister Cătălin Predoiu (PNL) should be urgently replaced after confessing that he has declared the fight against adult drug use lost. Witnessed by police chiefs, as he himself was keen to point out, so that he could be proved right in the long run, his discouraging message on such a sensitive issue is unacceptable. How can you go into battle with a general who admits defeat before firing the first shot?

Predoiu basically asked police chiefs a month ago to abandon the drug fight before it really started: ‘I told them verbatim, there were over 30 people there I think, so I have over 30 witnesses and I said this verbatim, the battle with drugs in the adult category at this point is lost’. European reports show that Romania is well below the European average for drug use, both for cannabis, cocaine and other high-risk drugs. In other words, although drug use has increased significantly in Romania, and the tragedy of 2 May has raised a serious alarm, we are still far from the harsh realities of Europe.

Politico recently reported, for example, that in the European capital, Brussels, drug use is totally out of control. How could the Belgian authorities declare themselves out of their depth and give up the fight? What message is Minister Predoiu sending to citizens? You are on your own, save your children while you can, the Romanian state is incapable of doing anything for you, the adult category. But if the situation is real and the fight is really lost, why are the police chiefs who have been running the institution for years still in office today?

After the series of tragedies that have occurred in Romania, that is all that was missing: a minister who announced the capitulation of the state in the face of a serious phenomenon such as drug use. If this is the interior minister’s inner conviction that the battle against drugs is useless, then he is of no further use. In his place must be brought in a Home Secretary who has solutions and aims to win battles, not resignedly see them lost.

What if, in the early 1990s, when Italy was under the terror of Cosa Nostra and the Ndragheta, who were killing judges, prosecutors and policemen, instead of organising the „mani pulite” operation, the Italian state had announced that it was surrendering to the Sicilian mafia clans because they had won the war? What is the Romanian state doing? It admits defeat in the fight against drugs even though, I would stress, the consumption situation in Romania has not, according to all the available data, reached the critical thresholds in other European countries.

Then, the Interior Minister offends en bloc entire institutions of justice, a system he led until recently. Proclaiming their failure in corpore is tantamount to acknowledging your failure as a former justice minister.

Surely Minister Predoiu knows that in the central structure of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), 14 prosecutors work in the anti-drug section, no more and no less. What has he done in his many years as head of justice to increase the Romanian state’s anti-drug capacity? Who made the appointments at the head of DIICOT? Yet the anti-drug prosecutors have been remarkably active, few as they are, and have reported impressive cases and catches in recent years.

Finally, by proclaiming the battle with adult drugs lost, the Minister of the Interior, Cătălin Predoiu, is declaring himself practically incapable of carrying out a task set by his direct boss. Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu asked him on Tuesday for the police to fight drug dealers more effectively and for a „massive effort” to break up trafficking networks.

Cătălin Predoiu’s response is a new proof of a failed state.

Background

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, Tuesday 29 August, Facebook post around noon:

„The measures to combat drug use, announced yesterday by the Minister of the Interior, Deputy Prime Minister Cătălin Predoiu, are a step forward on the right path, but they are not enough!
In addition to drug testing in schools and confiscation of the car of anyone caught driving while high, a massive effort is needed to break up drug trafficking networks.

I expect the police to fight drug dealers much more effectively! I want to see all available troops on the streets, on the trail of all those bastards who make fortunes by causing real tragedies in Romanian families! I believe that the Romanian Police has a huge duty to society in this regard.

Romanians must quickly see a deep and sustained change of attitude from the state and concrete results. Because this means hundreds and thousands of lives protected every day!”

Interior Minister Cătălin Predoiu said Tuesday in an interview with DCNews after the prime minister’s post that he told police chiefs a month and a half ago that „the battle with drugs in the adult category is lost at the moment.”

„I told them verbatim, there were over 30 people there I think, so I have over 30 witnesses and I said this verbatim, the battle with drugs in the adult category right now is lost. What we need to do, sure, is revitalize this effort on all levels but the priority is to save the younger generation. Two out of ten young people between 15 and 24, according to official statistics, have used drugs at least once. One in ten children up to the age of 16, in schools, one in ten, have used drugs at least once.”