To the attention of the European Commission, the European Ombudsman, and the European Parliament,
Undersigned: The Police Officers’ Union of Romania “Diamantul,” a legal entity acquired according to Civil Judgment No. 22(PJ)/23.11.2006, rendered in Case No. 15033/302/2006 by the District 5 Court, with its registered office in Bucharest, Corbita Street No. 39, District 5, Tax Identification Code 19544011, bank account RO96 Casa de Economii și Consemnațiuni Bank B31231 RON1692764, opened at Casa de Economii și Consemnațiuni Bank – Lipscani Branch, Bucharest, legally represented by President Vitalie Josanu, assisted by Emil Pascut, founder and Honorary President of the Union, having its chosen headquarters for receiving procedural and postal documents in Bucharest, Ienăchiță Văcărescu Street No. 17A, District 4, Ground Floor, Apartment 1, telephone/fax 021.315.28.26, email: petitii.sprdiamantul@yahoo.com,
hereby submits:
Notification regarding the excessive and abusive classification of the police salary methodology
Subject of the notification
The lack of transparency in regulating the salaries of police officers and military personnel in Romania, by excessively and abusively classifying legal acts, in contradiction with European principles on transparency and access to public information.
Context and general justification
Law No. 182/2002 on classified information protection stipulates that the classification levels are “state secrets” and “service secrets.”
The class of state secret information is divided into three levels:
- Top secret of special importance – information whose unauthorized disclosure could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security;
- Top secret – information whose unauthorized disclosure could cause serious damage to national security;
- Secret – information whose unauthorized disclosure could cause damage to national security.
Service secret information is defined as information whose disclosure could damage a public or private legal entity.
It can be observed that all classification levels require a justified motivation regarding a certain degree of potential prejudice through public disclosure.
Law No. 153/2017 on the remuneration of staff paid from public funds
Provides for the establishment of a general salary system for all personnel in the public sector paid from the state general budget. Publicly funded staff are divided into 7 occupational families, and for each occupational family, Law No. 153/2017 has a separate annex specifying salary entitlements. Annex VI regulates salary entitlements for the OCCUPATIONAL FAMILY OF BUDGET POSITIONS “DEFENSE, PUBLIC ORDER AND NATIONAL SECURITY,” which includes personnel with special status from public institutions in the defense, public order, and national security system: police officers, gendarmes, firefighters within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, military personnel in the Ministry of National Defense, and other military institutions.
Annex VI is defectively regulated, as Parliament only established basic salary entitlements for police and military personnel and delegated the authority to establish the conditions for granting these to the executive power, namely the Government and the ministries in the field “DEFENSE, PUBLIC ORDER AND NATIONAL SECURITY”: Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of National Defense, Romanian Intelligence Service, Ministry of Justice–National Administration of Penitentiaries.
For example, Article 5(3) in Annex VI specifies that the salaries/service pay for military personnel, police officers, and civil servants with special status are set by Government Decision.
This law enshrines, in Article 6 letters g) and i), the principles of transparency and the publicity of salary income, principles infringed by the excessive classification of subsequent acts.
Bearing this synthetic presentation of Law No. 153/2017 in mind, we highlight that Romanian national law stipulates the principle of transparency of activity (including normative activity) as a general principle of central public administration.
Law No. 153/2017 contains, in Article 6, several key principles (which, theoretically, should be observed by all subordinate-level norms issued for the execution of the law), among which are two extremely important applications of the general principle of transparency:
Article 6 “Principles”
“The remuneration system regulated by this law is based on the following principles:
- The principle of legality, meaning that salary rights are established by legal norms with the force of law, except for the government decisions provided in Article 11(1), in accordance with the principles set out in Article 120 of the Constitution of Romania, as republished, but within the minimum and maximum limits provided by this law;
- The principle of non-discrimination, meaning the elimination of any form of discrimination and the establishment of equal treatment with regard to personnel in the public sector who perform the same activity and have the same seniority in work and in position;
- The principle of equality, by ensuring equal basic salaries for work of equal value;
- The principle of the social importance of work, meaning that the remuneration of public sector personnel is carried out in relation to the responsibility, complexity, risks of the activity, and level of studies;
- The principle of motivating personnel in the public sector, in the context of recognizing and rewarding the professional performance achieved, based on the criteria established by law and in their own regulations;
- The principle of hierarchy, both vertically and horizontally, within the same field, depending on the complexity and importance of the activity performed;
- The principle of transparency of the salary mechanism, meaning ensuring salary predictability for personnel in the public sector;
- The principle of financial sustainability, meaning that the salary level for public sector personnel must be set so as to respect the ceilings of personnel expenses in the consolidated general budget, established under the law;
- The principle of publicity, in the sense of transparency of income of a salary nature, as well as other rights in cash and/or in kind for all positions in the public sector.”
Since the Parliament of Romania, when adopting Law No. 153/2017, followed a tradition rooted in the old dictatorial communist regime (which continued even under the new democratic regime, up to the present) and delegated legislative powers concerning the rights of police officers and military personnel to the Government and the ministries in the field, all the rules issued by the Government and the ministries – government decisions and ministerial orders – for the application of Annex VI to Law No. 153/2017 have, without exception, been classified and kept from publication.
Hence, Parliament observed a tradition with roots in the past communist dictatorship, delegating law-making competence to the Government and the “force” ministries, which promptly acted in the spirit of the same tradition, legislating in an opaque, non-transparent, undemocratic manner, often discriminatory, violating all the principles established in Article 6 of Law No. 153/2017, and disregarding the legal conditions for “prejudice” imposed by Law No. 182/2002.
We emphasize that, under the communist regime, the armed militia and the Security apparatus were repressive structures in support of the dictatorship and the communist nomenclature, enjoying privileges, including salary entitlements that were not to be known by citizens.
We highlight below regulations issued with these undemocratic characteristics, in a purported application of Law No. 153/2017.
Government Decision No. 0610/23.08.2017 (classified as state secret)
Regulates the setting of job positions by military/professional ranks, coefficients, and service pay/salaries for police officers and military personnel.
Classified as secret (state secret category), it hinders access to essential information regarding salary rights. Importantly, under 5% of police personnel in execution roles within the Romanian Police have access to secret-level information (state secret category).
Hence, from its adoption, through its highly excessive classification, this government decision (still in force) was meant to be inaccessible to its beneficiaries.
Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/I/2166/2017 (classified as service secret)
Aligns the police/military job positions to military/professional ranks and sets the salaries/service pay and related coefficients.
Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/7/2018
Approves the methodological norms for the application of Law No. 153/2017 on the remuneration of military personnel and police officers. It sets criteria for granting or withdrawing salary rights (many without support in the higher-level law and of a discriminatory nature) and establishes calculation formulas.
Unjustifiably classified, preventing the exercise of the employees’ rights to information and defense.
Union requests for declassification have not been resolved.
Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/84/2024
Implements Article VIII of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 26/2024 regarding salary increases for certain categories of personnel.
It is classified, and its non-uniform application has caused confusion and inequities among staff.
Recent example of abusive and harmful conduct by the Ministry of Internal Affairs
On March 25, 2024, the Government issued Emergency Ordinance No. 26/2024 on establishing specific rights for personnel of the Ministry of National Defense and certain expenses determined by the preparation and execution of missions outside the national territory, aiming at achieving and maintaining the capability related to acquiring Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial systems and other endowment programs, for amending and supplementing certain regulations in the field of defense, public order, and national security, as well as for adopting measures regarding the retention and attraction of personnel in these areas.
According to Article VIII of the ordinance:
Article VIII –
(1) Personnel within public institutions of defense, public order, and national security, who participate in achieving and maintaining the operational capability of structures/units, for carrying out specific missions, benefit from a salary increase of up to 30% of their service pay/job salary/basic salary.
(2) The structures/units are established by decision of the Supreme Council of National Defense.
(3) The period, categories of personnel, and the percentage of the salary increase are set by order of the head of the institution.
For the implementation of Emergency Ordinance No. 26/2024, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Cătălin Predoiu, issued Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/84/2024, subsequently amended by Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/16/2025. Since the amending order is incorporated into the initial regulation, we will refer to Ministry of Internal Affairs Order No. S/84/2024 hereafter.
Thus, the order was unjustifiably classified at the “Service Secret” level, despite regulating a salary right for staff in public institutions of defense, public order, and national security.
This classification violates the principle of salary transparency, provided for in Article 6 of Law No. 153/2017, as well as Articles 15 and 33 of Law No. 182/2002 on classified information protection.
It also contravenes Directive (European Union) 2023/970 on pay transparency.
By classifying it from the drafting stage, the authorities aimed to circumvent the provisions of Law No. 52/2003 on decisional transparency in public administration, preventing public consultation and democratic debate.
The minister’s order introduced additional conditions for granting, restricting, and terminating the salary increase, which are not provided by law. These are discriminatory, establishing differences in granting the right that are not laid down by law or not supported by the principle of “equal pay for equal work.”
Among them:
- Non-granting of the entitlement if not attending:
- Scheduled shooting sessions;
- Fitness training and assessment;
- Annual medical examination;
- Psychological evaluation.
- Exclusion from the entitlement for personnel who:
- Are under a disciplinary sanction, regardless of its severity;
- Are under criminal investigation, although they benefit from the presumption of innocence (Article 23 of the Constitution of Romania and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights).
- Reduction of the increase based on professional rating, as follows:
- For the rating “Good” – only 80% of the entitlement is granted;
- For the rating “Satisfactory” – nothing is granted.
The order set arbitrary and discriminatory percentages, favoring central and support structures to the detriment of operational ones.
Operational public order and traffic police structures, which carry out the core functions of policing, receive lower percentages of allocation compared to evidentiary structures.
This subjective distribution conflicts with the principle “equal pay for equal work.”
Violation of Directive (European Union) 2023/970 on pay transparency
Directive (European Union) 2023/970 sets clear rules on pay transparency and equal pay, binding on European Union Member States.
It mandates sanctions for employers who violate transparency rules and obliges Member States, including Romania, to transpose these provisions into national legislation by June 7, 2026.
The actions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs—unjustifiable classification and the introduction of restrictive conditions—directly contradict the Directive’s aims regarding transparency and non-discrimination in pay.
Critique in relation to the definitions of ratings from Annex 8 to Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 140/2016
According to Annex 8 of Order No. 140/2016 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the ratings “Good” and “Satisfactory” certify that the police officer performs the duties of the position according to its requirements.
The “Good” rating does not reflect deficient performance, but rather an adequate one, making a 20% reduction in the salary increase unfounded legally and logically.
The “Satisfactory” rating does not equate to incompetence; rather, it indicates the performance of duties at a minimally acceptable level, in line with the job description.
The Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs turns the salary increase into a reward for “exceptionality,” although Article VIII of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 26/2024 does not provide for such a merit-based nature, but instead establishes an additional salary right for all relevant personnel.
Problems identified overall
- Excessive classification of regulations
- Hinders unions and employees from accessing essential information regarding salary rights.
- Contravenes European principles of transparency and access to public interest information.
- Adoption of new regulations with the same classification regime
- Maintains the secret status of salary methodologies, perpetuating a lack of transparency and violating Law No. 52/2003 on decisional transparency.
- Lack of a uniform and non-discriminatory framework for applying salary rights
- Creates discrimination and inequities among staff categories, as the regulations remain inaccessible and inconsistent.
- Ignoring requests for declassification
- Trade unions constantly request the declassification of documents (e.g., Government Decision No. 0610/2017, Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/7/2018, Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. S/84/2024), but the authorities refuse to act in the spirit of transparency.
Requests
- Investigation of the conformity of Romanian legislation
We request an analysis from the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Ombudsman concerning the alignment of Romanian legislation and national practices, especially regarding the pay of police officers and military personnel, with European directives that guarantee transparency and access to information in the area of employment relations. - Declassification of regulations
We request that you take measures within your competence so that Romanian authorities fully or partially declassify the normative acts regulating the remuneration of military personnel and police officers, allowing public oversight and the exercise of workers’ rights. - Ensuring a uniform and non-discriminatory framework
We call for the adoption of measures guaranteeing equal application, without privileges or discriminatory constraints, of salary rights for police officers and military personnel in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in accordance with European and national legislation. - Monitoring compliance with decisional transparency
We ask European institutions to monitor how Romania fulfills its transparency obligations in the field of public sector pay, including through periodic reporting mechanisms.
We thank you for your attention to this notification and look forward to your response.
Respectfully,
The Police Officers’ Union of Romania “Diamantul”
President of the Union Vitalie Josanu
Founder and Honorary President Emil Pascut
