It’s been twenty years since Romania joined the North-Atlantic Alliance.
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.
(Mihai Pelin, Radio Romania International)
