Romania – ten years of NATO membership
Romanias tenth anniversary of NATO membership came amid the biggest security crisis in the region, Crimeas break-up with Ukraine.
Corina Cristea, 18.07.2014, 12:43
Faced with the developments in Ukraine that saw Crimea break up with Ukraine and join Russia, NATO had to adjust its strategies to be able to cope with current and future challenges. At a conference held by Bucharest to celebrate its 10th anniversary of NATO membership, Romania’s prime minister Victor Ponta said the decision making process within the North Atlantic Alliance should be based on two main lines of action: the creation of a common NATO economic area and the expansion of military security to the countries that wish to join the European Union. Victor Ponta:
“I believe that NATO, including Romania as a member country, must hold a realistic talk at the upcoming summit in September about NATO’s strategy with regard to the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. These countries need more than promises and recommendations.”
Romania’s former president Emil Constantinescu too said that NATO’s profile should be adjusted to a constantly changing society:
“It is important to build our defence capacities, even though military development sometimes seems to be an excessive measure. Finding ourselves at a crossroads in this globalised world, what’s important is not choosing one road or another, but the ability to predict where these road may take us or to identify alternative pathways in this century of unexpected transformations when the threats and the players are changing so fast.”
In its ten years of NATO membership, Romania has taken part in the theatres of operation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Western Balkans and Northern Africa, contributing around 40,000 troops to these regions. 26 Romanian soldiers were killed in mission, most of them in Afghanistan, and 145 wounded. In the last ten years, Romania has also signed a number of strategic partnerships and has streamlined and modernised its army to meet NATO standards. NATO membership has also provided Romania with the guarantee that its borders are secure, says historian Dorin Matei. Asked about its position within the North Atlantic Alliance, he said:
“I believe Romania’s voice has been quite well heard in the North-Atlantic Alliance lately. Romania has always insisted on the need to focus on this region. There was an entire discussion about how important the Mediterranean was, because this is where terrorism finds its easiest gateway into Europe. But Romania insisted, and history has proved it right, that this east-European region, and especially the Black Sea region with so many frozen conflicts, is one that must be given full attention. I should also add, speaking about the redistribution of NATO forces and attention, that in the early 1990s there were agreements between NATO and Russia, with NATO undertaking not to deploy forces above a certain threshold into the new territories integrated in the Alliance. But with Russia’s move into Crimea, NATO’s hands are no longer tied. Unlike the Russians, the West has always complied with its commitments. But now they are no longer under an obligation to respect these agreements, and in the forthcoming NATO summit we will see a change in the discourse about the redistribution of NATO troops and equipment.”
According to the presidential adviser for strategic affairs, security and foreign policy Iulian Chifu, Romania’s insistence on the importance of the Black Sea region to NATO and to regional security has been notable ever since the summit in Riga, when this element was included in the final declaration, and particularly at the 2008 summit in Bucharest. In an interview to Radio Romania, Iulian Chifu also said:
“We must emphasise the special relationship we have with the United States, our strategic Partnership with his country. We’ve seen how much this strategic partnership means, how much it brings, not only in military, political or security terms, but also in economic and development terms.”
In fact, Chifu explained, this strategic partnership proved its viability in this latest crisis as well, when we could see how quickly NATO military forces from the US came to support those countries that felt certain pressures or threats to their security.
