December 1 in Romania
Romanias National Day was celebrated with the usual festivities, but also with a new project for the country.
Bogdan Matei, 02.12.2013, 13:35
On Sunday, Romanians celebrated their national day seemingly more relaxed than in previous years, either because the economic crisis is over, or because they got used to it. Partisan disputes were dampened, and the proverbial booing of politicians who laid wreathes of flowers were less loud.
In Bucharest, the traditional military parade had the most pomp and circumstance of any in the last two decades. For the first time, the over two thousand Romanian soldiers on parade were joined by 140 comrades from NATO allied countries, the US, France, Poland and Turkey.
The Congress of Romanian Spirituality was held in Alba Iulia, the city that was the venue of Transylvania’s union with Romania on 1 December 1918, right after the end of WWI, forming a unitary nation state. Delegates from 23 countries on several continents attended, debating the state of Romanians everywhere 95 years later.
To a large extent, the euphoria was prompted by a foreign policy success which Bucharest can take most of the credit for. At the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius recently, the ex-Soviet Republic of Moldova signed the association and free trade agreement with the EU. Romanian President Traian Basescu saluted this event, while pointing out that the Republic of Moldova has a long way to go before it can become an EU member. He reiterated his conviction that Moldova could speed up the process by uniting with Romania. This union, the president said, has to be the next country project:
Traian Basescu: “This is not an ideal to be reached on short term, but we have to commit to it and state it pointedly, if we wish for this ideal to one day be fulfilled.”
Moldovan president Nicolae Timofti, attending the military parade in Bucharest on 1 December, confirmed the deep affinities between the two neighboring countries:
Nicolae Timofti: “The Republic of Moldova is part of European culture, and of course, Romanian culture. Witness to that are our common classics. We speak the same language, we have the same feelings, and have lived the same tumultuous history.”
President Timofti once again thanked his counterpart for the consistency Romania displayed in pleading Moldova’s cause in Brussels.
