NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said on Friday in Cluj that Romania’s integration into NATO and the EU are as important historical moments as the Great Union and the Little Union.
“For Romania, NATO integration ends only in 2022. We joined in 2004, but from a military and security point of view, Romania will have, due to the fact that Russia is an unpredictable and aggressive actor, the same quality of national security as Germany or Belgium. We have no difference between what NATO has on the eastern flank and what NATO already has in Western Europe, which is a fundamental change. (…) Romania’s natural family is in NATO and the EU (…), it is our home. (…) Our integration into NATO and the EU is – and will be in the history book – a moment as important as the Great Union or the Little Union, because it is in fact a change of paradigm, for the first time, Romania has the entire democratic West as its ally and partner,” said Mircea Geona, at a debate organised by Babes-Bolyai University (UBB).
At the same debate, he said that the world, humanity, is undergoing unprecedented transformations.
“We are witnessing one of the greatest transformations of human society in the history of our species. We have never had so many cumulative, structural factors. (…) We have a certain crisis of democracy and the capitalist model that Europe [has had], for five centuries, and even Romania, maybe not always as organically, but who has been a part of it in a kind of domination of Europe in terms of ideas and values; democracy was born here, the ideas of modern capitalism were born here and in the Western democratic world there is a great deal of conversation right now about the need to refresh our democracy, because it’s a project that is not static, it’s very dynamic, and like anything else where you don’t invest energy, love and attention, it risks remaining behind the expectations of the public opinion. At the economic level, in addition to the great technological revolution, we have a strong conversation about the type of capitalism or the types of capitalism, because it is not a single one, because the economic model must also be rethought,” argued Mircea Geoana, according t Agerpres.
On Friday, UBB and the Aspen Romania Institute organised a debate on “The Role of NATO and the European Union in Romania’s Modernisation,” which was attended by NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana and UBB Rector, Professor Dr. Daniel David.
Geoana on upcoming NATO Summit in Madrid: Good news in store for Romania, Ukraine, transatlantic relationship
NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said on Friday in Cluj-Napoca that the upcoming NATO Summit in Madrid (June 28-30) will be a historic one which will bring good news for Romania but also for Ukraine, the transatlantic relationship and the Alliance itself.
“It will be a historic summit with a profound transformative outreach. We will focus on strengthening NATO’s eastern flank presence, the leaders will announce the size and the specific contributions by various allies. We expect good news for Romania too. The summit will adopt the Strategic Concept. I anticipate it to significantly reflect the Black Sea region because it is of vital strategic importance to NATO. Also, we are looking forward to President Zelensky’s participation, as support for Ukraine’s just war against the Russian aggressor must continue. We are pleased with yesterday’s exceptional news from Brussels confirming the European perspective of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine and their official EU candidate status; we welcome this achievement,” Mircea Geoana said, answering questions by journalists.
He added that he hopes that apart from the good news for the NATO countries, there will also be “very bad news for Russia”.
“In an extended geography approach, for the first time in the history of NATO summits we will have the leaders of Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea also attending. So this is an extremely important summit, there is good news in store for Romania, good news for NATO, for the transatlantic relationship, there is good news for Ukraine and – hopefully – very bad news for the Russian Federation,” Geoana said, according to Agerpres.
Photo: Facebook/Universitatea Babes-Bolyai
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