November 27, 2022

NATO Bucharest will host on Tuesday and Wednesday a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. Attending will also be the foreign ministers of Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine and, for the first time, the Republic of Moldova. The war in Ukraine will be one of the main topics of the meeting. The conference will be co-chaired by the Romanian foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu, and NATO's secretary general Jens Stoltenberg. This is the first event of this kind organised in Romania since the country joined the Alliance in 2004 and the second NATO formal meeting in Romania since the 2008 summit. NATO's deputy secretary general, Mircea Geoană, says the event is a bridge between this summer's summit in Madrid and the forthcoming summit in Vilnius, and a contribution made by Romania to the Alliance's strategic thinking and response to the complex situation on the continent.

MLM A Munich Leaders Meeting (MLM) takes place in Bucharest on Monday and Tuesday. The Romanian foreign ministry is co-hosting this prestigious event, which is part of the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Attending will be over 75 senior officials from over 25 countries, including current and former officials, experts, analysts and opinion leaders. The agenda includes relevant topics for international security, with an emphasis on developments in the Black Sea and Western Balkans regions. Other topics will be the European security architecture, implementing the new NATO Strategic Concept, hybrid threats, food security, and the energy crisis. The conclusions of the meeting in Bucharest will contribute to shaping the agenda of next year's Munich Security Conference.

NATIONAL DAY Events devoted to Romania's National Day on December 1 begin in Alba Iulia on November 30, with military and wreath laying ceremonies. On December 1, more than 850 troops will parade in Alba Iulia, including a French unit part of the NATO battlegroup deployed in Cincu, Braşov County. In Bucharest, over 1,500 troops and staff of the defence ministry, interior ministry, the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Special Telecommunications Service and the Penitentiary Agency as well as vehicles and 40 aircraft will take part in a military parade on December 1. According to a defence ministry news release, around 150 troops from Belgium, France, North Macedonia, R. of Moldova, the Netherlands, Portugal and the US, will also take part. Romanian military personnel on missions abroad will also organise special ceremonies.

ENVIRONMENT The Romanian environment ministry launched a national forestation programme financed from EU funds under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The decision was made because forests cover less than 30% of the country's surface, as against the European average of 40%. In some counties in the south and south-east of the country, the ratio is even have less than 5%. Farmers who no longer want to keep their farmland under crops may turn it into forests or shelterbelts. The government provides up to EUR 20,000 for a hectare of oak forest in plains areas and up to EUR 17,000 per hectare of shelterbelts, with an additional EUR 456 per year for each hectare of forest for 20 years.

ENESCU The George Enescu International Music Festival was shortlisted for the prestigious International Opera Awards, the 'Oscars' of the opera world, the festival organisers have announced. The awards ceremony takes place on Monday at Teatro Real (Madrid, Spain). The 2021 edition was shortlisted in the Festivals section, alongside other top-level events in the world of international classical music, such as the Donizetti Festival and Garsington Opera. (AMP)