President Nicusor Dan on Wednesday stated that representatives of the intelligence services must be concerned and find information about the problem of tax evasion and that their role must stop at providing this information to ANAF (National Agency for Fiscal Administration) and to prosecutors’ offices.

„Tax evasion is already in the National Security Strategy, so there is no need for any changes, it already is. What we need to do is to be very clear about the extent to which the services operate. And I mean the intelligence services here, because tax evasion is a matter of national security and this is not just my opinion, it is in the official document of the Romanian state, so they must get involved and find information about this issue and their role must stop at providing this information to ANAF and to the prosecutors’ offices. That is the issue. And a civilian director of the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) has this as his main mission, so that we do not end up with more interference from the services than is necessary,” Nicusor Dan told a press conference held at the Cotroceni Palace.

He emphasised that the intelligence services do not carry out checks, but gather information.

„Controls are carried out by ANAF representatives and, to the extent that there are suspicions of a crime, they can be carried out by prosecutors’ offices. So I want the delimitation between what is the intelligence service and what is the activity of other state bodies to be very, very clear. Intelligence services collect information that is relevant to national security. (…) Of course, there are priorities in collecting this information. Obviously, a priority is the security area itself, potential terrorist actions and so on. And I want the area of tax evasion to also be a priority for these services,” said the head of state.

AGERPRES