Romania’s draft National Defence Law has ignited a fierce domestic row after prominent jurists and civil-liberties groups warned it would centralise wartime authority in the Defence Ministry, blur constitutional safeguards, and open the door to military operations beyond NATO’s framework.

Attorney Veronel Rădulescu accused President Nicușor Dan’s administration of “washing its hands” of strategic command by moving core defence prerogatives from the presidency and the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT) to the Ministry of National Defence (MApN). He argued that, taken together, the provisions would sideline both CSAT and Parliament in crisis decision-making, placing unprecedented discretion with service chiefs and a newly configured recruitment apparatus reporting into the general staff.

At the heart of the dispute are several changes flagged by critics. First, there’s the issue of erasing constitutional anchors; legal analysts say references to “territorial integrity” and “constitutional democracy” present in the current law are absent or diluted in the new text, weakening the statute’s guiding principles. Then, vague “coalitions” beyond NATO are mentioned, as the proposal introduces participation in “certain military coalitions” without defining them or their authorising chain—raising the prospect, opponents say, of deployments alongside ad hoc groupings not sanctioned by NATO’s North Atlantic Council.

Not to mention, the multiple clauses which appear to shift defence authority from the president (commander-in-chief under the Constitution) toward the defence minister and the general staff. Critics also note the National Recruitment Centre would no longer sit under CSAT oversight.

Civil-rights NGO APADOR-CH urged Parliament to rewrite key articles, warning that imprecise terms such as “threats and dangers” and “appropriate measures” could be used to restrict rights outside declared states of emergency, citing pandemic-era closures, protest bans or media suspensions as cautionary examples. The group also objected to language allowing the use of “military and non-military capabilities” abroad to counter “hybrid threats,” a term it says is undefined in the bill or in referenced statutes.

“Without clear thresholds of severity and explicit NATO authorisation requirements, Parliament could be asked to approve overseas action on nebulous grounds,” the NGO argued, calling for a bright-line rule that external interventions occur only pursuant to a North Atlantic Council decision.

The government, which submitted the draft in the lower house on 6 October, has not issued a detailed rebuttal to the legal critiques. Supporters of the overhaul say Romania needs faster decision cycles, tighter force readiness and modern rules to address cyber, disinformation and grey-zone coercion that fall short of an Article 5 attack. The Defence Ministry has previously argued that aligning command chains to operational realities shortens reaction times in crises.

The political context is combustible. At the recent European Political Community gathering in Copenhagen, President Nicușor Dan circulated prosecutorial findings he said documented foreign interference networks tied to Russia during last year’s annulled elections, claims that have polarised the country and drawn scrutiny from European partners. Moscow, for its part, seized on the controversy, with President Vladimir Putin railing against “bans” on political opponents and holding up Romania as an example of electoral “manipulation, comments likely to harden positions in Bucharest rather than soften them.

Inside Parliament, opposition figures demanded line-by-line clarifications: Who designates non-NATO “coalitions”? What precise actions constitute “hybrid threats”? Which measures may authorities apply absent a formal emergency? And under what conditions, if any, could Romanian commanders yield operational control to a foreign officer in a coalition setting?

Even some MPs sympathetic to stronger defence posture warn the draft’s elastic language risks unintended consequences. Bonding Romania more tightly to NATO has long been a cross-party consensus; anything that looks like a parallel track, they say, invites legal challenges at home and confusion among allies.

For now, the bill faces a gauntlet: committee scrutiny, possible Constitutional Court referrals, and a politically fraught floor vote. Without sharper definitions, firmer parliamentary guardrails and explicit NATO gating for external operations, its backers may struggle to prove that a law intended to harden national security won’t erode democratic oversight in the process.

By I. Constantin