Radio România Internațional

Tag: NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana

  • Who runs for Romania’s presidential seat?

    Who runs for Romania’s presidential seat?

    The nominees of the Social-Democratic Party and of the National Liberal Party for the position of Romania’s president, Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciuca respectively, might run into the second round of voting due in December this year, says a survey conducted by the Center for Urban and Regional Sociology, CURS, over August 6 and 22.

    Ranking first among the electorate’s preferences is the PSD nominee with 32% followed by PNL with 19%. They are followed by the incumbent NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoana, who runs as an independent with 15% and George Simion, the nationalist leader of the AUR political group, who would muster 14% of the votes.

    The two ladies who have made public their intention to run for the presidential seat, Elena Lasconi from the United Right Alliance could get 11% while the controversial Diana Şoşoacă from the SOS Romania party only 5% of the voting intentions.

    We recall that the first round of the presidential election in Romania is to take place on November 24 and the second on December 8. They will take place in the same period as those for the country’s Parliament, due to take place on December 1, Romania’s national day.

    The election campaign for the Parliament seats will be unfolding over November 1 and 30. In Romania voters will be able to cast their ballots on December the 1 between 7 and 21 hours whereas in the Diaspora voting will kick off on 30 November at 7 hours local time and end on 1 December, at 21 hours.

    Until then, according to the same CURS survey, the first two parties preferred by the voters would muster more votes than their nominees; PSD would get 34%, while PNL 24%. AUR would take 14% and the United Right Alliance 12%. SOS Romania will have 5% and so will UDMR.

    If the situation doesn’t change, the Romanians could be governed by the same two parties, which are making up the incumbent ruling coalition, the Social-Democrats and the Liberals, which are presently enjoying a comfortable majority in the Bucharest Parliament.

    So, Romania’s political stage would be dominated by the same figures who are presently ruling the country. And if the incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu won the presidential election, he would become the first Social-Democratic president in the past 20 years.

    And if Ciolacu won the race, he would take over the presidential seat from another liberal, Klaus Iohannis. So, the stake is high for both parties!

    In the end we should mention that it’s for the first time in Romania’s history when the country has seen four types of elections in a year; those for the local administration and the European Parliament were already held in June.

    (bill)

  • 20 Years in NATO

    20 Years in NATO

    At the Prague Summit in November 2002, NATO launched membership invitations to seven states: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. And on March 29, 2004, Romania officially joined the North Atlantic Alliance, submitting the instruments of ratification to the US State Department. Attending the event alongside the American president George Walker Bush were the prime ministers of the seven nations, including the Romanian PM Adrian Năstase. “When the North Atlantic Alliance was established, the peoples of these seven countries were captives of an empire. They endured a terrible tyranny, fought for their independence and won their freedom through courage and perseverance,” said George Bush, in one of the most consequential days in Romania’s history.

    The then president of the United States categorically reaffirmed NATO’s central mission, that of defending its members against any aggression. Recently, the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, Mircea Goană, has reminded the Romanian community in Washington D.C. Bucharest’s steps towards accession, stressing that, after the refusal of the Alliance in 1997 to accept Romania in its ranks, he initiated, as a young ambassador to the United States, the idea of ​​a strategic partnership with the United States. A partnership that constantly built the bilateral relationship with the strongest ally in NATO, and, after 7 years of efforts, of perseverance and courage, Romania officially joined NATO.

    Along with the Strategic Partnership with the United States, concluded during the time of President Emil Constantinescu (1996-2000), Romania’s cooperation with NATO during the war in Yugoslavia is considered another important stage in the political process of joining the North Atlantic Alliance – the main guarantor of security. The NATO values, transposed in the provision of peace, freedom and commitment to democracy, are the most important achievements of this political-military alliance.

    The status of NATO member on the eastern border of the military bloc has turned Romania into an important ally for the other 31 members. Moreover, NATO chose Romania to host four of its important structures, three of which are command structures. In addition, in Deveselu (south), the United States placed, in 2016, a part of the American anti-missile shield which, later, was integrated into that of NATO. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, in February 2022, led the Alliance to immediately create a battle group in Romania as well.

    At the same time, NATO decided to expand the Mihail Kogălniceanu military air base (south-east), used intensively by the American army during the missions in Afghanistan. This will become the largest base of the Alliance in Europe and will be able to permanently house up to 10 thousand soldiers and their families. In the new geopolitical context, the development of the base thus strengthens NATO’s eastern flank. Currently, there are about 5,000 allied soldiers in Romania. (MI)

  • September 12, 2023

    September 12, 2023


    Welfare. Some 2 million vulnerable households n Romania will benefit from fresh financial aid starting this week. Its the second installment, worth 140 euro, for the payment of bills for electricity, heat, gas and other fuels that can be used to heat homes. The first tranche was disbursed at the beginning of the year. In total, the amount received in 2023 by a family with financial problems is 1,400 lei, from European funds. In another move, starting next month, pensioners with incomes lower or equal to 3,000 lei (aprox 600 Euro) will benefit from the second installment of the aid granted by the state. Moreover, this year, the Romanian citizens belonging to vulnerable categories are getting from the state social cards, which means 50 euro every two months for food and warm meals. According to the Labour Minister, this measure benefits approximately 2.5 million people.



    NATO. The Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the Romanian Mircea Geoană, has stated that there are no indications that the Russian Federation intends to attack a member state of the Alliance, but the concern of the Romanian citizens who live near the Danube border with Ukraine is understandable. ” My message, as a Romanian, is to try to have faith in the fact that the North Atlantic Alliance has all the measures in place to ensure the protection of the entire allied space, including Romania”, Geoană also said. He welcomed the USs decision to add air policing missions in the Black Sea area. In another development, a joint military exercise is taking place, until Friday, in the Black Sea and the Danube Delta. 227 soldiers, of which 164 Romanians and 63 foreigners, are participating in the multinational exercise Sea Breeze, organized by the United States of America for the first time in Romania. The exercises contribute to increasing stability in the Black Sea region and ensuring freedom of navigation, as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine.



    Deficit. Romanias trade balance deficit, for the first seven months of 2023, stood at 15.6 billion euros, 17% lower than the same period last year. According to the National Institute of Statistics, during this period, Romanias exports totaled 55 billion euros, 4.6% higher than the similar period of the previous year. At the same time, between January 1 and July 31, 2023, Romania imported goods worth 70 billion euros, down 1.1% compared to the similar period in 2022.



    Poetry. The 13th International Poetry Festival started in Bucharest on Monday. For one week, the event, appreciated by specialists as one of the most watched in Europe, brings together over 170 poets from 27 countries on four continents. The program includes meetings with poets, translators and editors, public readings, debates, round tables, colloquiums, poetry marathons or performances, but also theater shows, film screenings and concerts, exhibitions and events dedicated to professionals. As part of the International Poetry Festival, a well-known and popular project is also organized – the National Poetry Book Fair, which brings to the fore the latest and most important volumes of poetry.



    Festival. Vladimir Jurowski, one of the most well-known and appreciated conductors in the world, returns to Bucharest with the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra to perform two concerts, on Wednesday and Thursday, as part of the George Enescu International Festival. Vladimir Jurowski has been actively involved in promoting and supporting the musical legacy of the greatest Romanian composer, George Enescu, since 2005, when he came to the Enescu Festival for the first time with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Between 2017 and 2021, he was the artistic director of the Festival, being an enthusiastic promoter of Enescus music worldwide. We remind you that, this year, at the 26th edition of the George Enescu Festival, over 3,500 artists have been invited to the stages in Bucharest, in 90 concerts held over 29 days (27 August – 24 September).



    Sports. The Romanian national football team plays, this evening, at home, against Kosovo, in Group I of the EURO 2024 preliminaries. On Saturday, also at home, the tricolors ended in a tie with the Israeli national team, 1-1. In another move, the Romanian national mens volleyball team was defeated by France, the reigning Olympic champion, with 3-0, on Monday evening, in Varna (Bulgaria), in the quarter-finals of the European Mens Volleyball Championship – CEV EuroVolley 2023. Thus, France got revenge after Romanias surprise victory in the group stage, with a score of 3-1. Romania has not been among the top eight volleyball teams of the continent for 40 years, after finishing in 8th place in 1983. At the previous edition of the European Championship in which they participated, in 2019, the Romanian volleyball players ranked 21st The record of the tricolors includes a European title in 1963, two silver medals (1955, 1958) and two bronze medals (1971, 1977). (MI)


  • NATO and New Threats

    NATO and New Threats

    Romania is
    already hosting US military bases and some elements of the anti-missile shield
    but the US military presence on its territory might increase, if the country wishes
    so. It is the assessment of the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the Romanian
    Mircea Geoana, motivated by the fact that Russia continues to substantially strengthen
    its military capabilities in the Black Sea area. Romania, Mr. Geoana has
    stated, has a very complex geographical position and therefore it has arguments
    in favour of demanding a greater Allied or American presence in the area.

    Mircea Geoana: I
    think we need to come up with a set of arguments, which are quite obvious. On the
    one hand, we are witnessing an aggressive presence and the presence of an offensive
    military reinforcement, which the Russian Federation has in the Black Sea and from
    the Black Sea; and on the other, here, the base in Kogalniceanu is ideally
    placed geographically and strategically for these expeditionary elements. I am
    convinced that our leaders, our military, our diplomats know very well these
    arguments and are convinced that now, or in the coming period, they will use
    their influence and sophistication to advance our interests as a country.


    A former
    ambassador to Washington and foreign minister in the early 2000s, when Romania
    joined NATO, Mircea Geoana has given a diagnosis identical to that of the
    Romanian diplomacy. On June 12th, which is the day of the Russian
    Federation, the Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu ordered that the
    Russian ambassador to Bucharest, Valery Kuzmin, be summoned to the ministry’s
    headquarters, where he was informed that mentioning Moscow as a security threat
    in Romania’s new National Defense Strategy should not come up as a surprise.


    This is the
    effect of the ‘known behavior’ of the Russian side in the region, ‘behaviour
    assessed as destabilizing, including in the common stands adopted at the level of
    NATO and the European Union.


    On the
    other hand, Mircea Geoana has stated that, although President Donald Trump has
    recently decided to reduce the number of American soldiers in Germany, it does
    not mean that the US’s presence in Europe will decrease, but only that it will be
    adapted to new strategic realities. As for China, the NATO Deputy Secretary General
    has explained that the Alliance is considering Beijing’s obvious rise. He has
    mentioned the risk of distorting competition at global level, when a state buys
    ideas, skilled people and companies, which are current practices for China. The
    Covid-19 pandemic has not eliminated, but amplified the already existing security
    risks, and lowering the guard at such a time would be a serious mistake, the
    NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana has also stated.