President Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that Romania has "very concrete" expectations of the NATO Summit, indicating a significant consolidation of the Eastern Flank, an increase in the number of allied soldiers, the designation of the Black Sea as an area of strategic interest, Russia to be considered a significant threat to the Alliance, and the battle groups to be raised to brigades.
President Iohannis presented Romania's expectations of the summit.
"I, my team, Romania, have very concrete expectations of this summit. We expect, for example, that a meeting will be decided, a significant consolidation of the Eastern Flank, the Eastern Flank where we are located, which means that we expect a significant increase in the number of allied soldiers who will be stationed on the Eastern Flank and, implicitly, of course, in Romania as well. We expect the Black Sea area, where we are and where the war is taking place, to be declared an area of strategic interest to NATO. We expect Russia to be declared the most important danger zone, so Russia to be declared a significant threat to NATO, because this is what it is. We expect quite concretely - to give examples of this kind - for the battle groups that have been proposed and are being set up on the Eastern Flank to become bigger, to become brigades," said the head of the state.
Iohannis said that Romania supports the "open doors" policy, pointing out that Tuesday night's talks were aimed at accepting Sweden and Finland into the North Atlantic Alliance.
"So high expectations from us, high expectations from the allies and the general expectation is for NATO to prove that it is united and strong and I believe that at this Summit we will prove this," the Romanian president said.
President Klaus Iohannis is attending the NATO Summit in Madrid on Wednesday and Thursday. On Tuesday, the head of state attended a gala dinner hosted by King Philip VI and Queen Letizia in honor of the heads of state and government attending the Alliance Summit.