Acting Minister of the Interior Catalin Predoiu said on Thursday, on the occasion of the Ministry of the Interior Day, that illegal migration has been reduced 'to insignificant levels' and that Romania can be considered 'a country with zero migration'.

'The first Schengen evaluation by the European Commission, completed a few months ago, had a very good result; some of the tactics and procedures applied by the Romanian ministry will be taken over and will soon become Schengen standards across the EU. Yesterday we were candidates, today we are a model for applying Schengen procedures,' Predoiu said at the ceremony marking the Day of the Ministry of the Interior, as cited in a release.

The minister specified that regarding the other established objectives, statistical parameters show improvements by over 30% in all areas, from the number of dismantled criminal groups to drug seizures.

'We obviously do not claim that the situation is ideal. We are facing a criminal phenomenon in continuous flux in the area of organised crime and drug trafficking, as well as in the area of human trafficking, a phenomenon that is also part of the global phenomenon of the organised crime and drug-trafficking industry, which, according to former European Commissioner Ylva Johansson, has flooded Europe through the ports of the continent's western part,' Predoiu said.

He added that, alongside the prosecutor's offices and intelligence services, as well as other institutions, the Ministry of the Interior plays a key role in ensuring public safety and national security - a reality that many European countries regard with respect: Romania is one of the safest countries in the European Union in terms of street safety and public safety in general.

The minister of the Interior noted that in 2025 a series of reforms were launched to streamline certain dispatch structures in order to use resources more efficiently, and that a reform was initiated to integrate road-traffic information with the aim of improving road safety.

'I only wanted to underscore that the Ministry of the Interior is currently at a level that allows it to keep the criminal phenomenon in check and, in the coming years, to move to a new stage of institutional development and adaptation. This new stage is necessary because the world has changed with the impact of new technologies, including at cultural level and at the level of societal values, as well as with the ongoing geopolitical realignments, with collateral effects in the area of public order and safety,' Predoiu emphasized.

In his view, without organisational adjustment to new developments and without integrating new technologies into public-order and civil-protection activities, fulfilling long-term missions will no longer be possible.

'Public safety will depend on integrating new technologies into almost all fields. It is a command dictated by the sophistication of threats, combined with the severe shortage of human resources. The only way we will solve this equation is through new technologies. From border surveillance to the safety of major festivals, which already gather hundreds of thousands of people in the same area, with associated risks, and to the search and identification of dangerous criminals or terrorist groups in action, countering threats will be an empty phrase without intelligent video surveillance or without the use of artificial intelligence,' Predoiu said. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Alexandru Florea; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)