Consolidating NATO’s collective defense and reinforcing its eastern border also by ensuring a robust and credible presence of the Alliance in the region are two of the objectives of the Romanian diplomacy at the forthcoming summit in Warsaw, due on July 8 and 9. Bucharest believes in the strategic importance of the Black Sea for the Euro-Atlantic security and in boosting cooperation and coordination between NATO and the EU on the one hand, and NATO and its eastern partners on the other.
In the run up to the Warsaw summit, a meeting of the NATO defense ministers has been scheduled in Brussels these days, to also be attended by Romania’s Defense Minister Mihnea Motoc. The debates will focus, among other things, on increasing the amounts earmarked for defense in each NATO member country. In 2014, NATO members decided not to cut those budgets, but to increase them so as to account for 2% of the GDP in the next ten years, given that defensive military capabilities are more expensive than the offensive ones. The news is good in this respect, as NATO estimates indicate an average of 1.5% of the GDP so far.
Another important issue to be tackled in Brussels is getting NATO involved, through the AWACS aircraft, that is an airborne warning and control aircraft, in the fight against ISIS. Moreover, NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, told a press conference that, in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the alliance would deploy four multinational battalions, on a rotational basis in the Baltic States and Poland, to boost those countries’ defence against Russia. According to Stoltenberg, NATO’s defence and deterrence force is not exclusively based on those four battalions. Seeing things in a broader perspective, those battalions are part of a more comprehensive change in NATO’s stand, in response to the challenges facing it.
The message is clear — NATO is prepared to protect all its members, if necessary. Bucharest has received assurances in this respect from the United States too, through the voice of Ambassador Douglas Lute, the US Permanent Representative to NATO. The North Atlantic Alliance will stand by Romania in case of a concrete threat, Lute said in a teleconference referring to Russian President Putin’s recent statements. Moscow has not become more aggressive, but, in fact, it continues the irresponsible behaviour it started two years ago with the illegal annexation of Crimea, Douglas Lute also said. Bothered by the deployment of some elements of the anti-missile shield in Deveselu, southern Romania, Russia has an interesting rhetoric, but NATO will focus on facts, the American official went on to say.
(Translated by Elena Enache)
