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Bucharest Security Conference: Europe needs to redefine its relationship with the United States within the Alliance
After the Warsaw Summit, NATO adopted a defensive, proportional and transparent approach intended to keep aggression at bay, prevent conflicts and new threats, noted the analysts, experts and officials attending the Bucharest Security Conference.
"Preventing, not triggering conflict, is what NATO has done in the last 60 years. (...) We do not want confrontation or another arms race, but we have an obligation to protect our allies," NATO Assistant Secretary-general Sorin Ducaru told the conference organized by the National School of Political Sciences and Public Administration.
In his turn, Vice-President of the European Parliament Ioan Mircea Pascu cautioned that the situation in the Black Sea region is deteriorating at an extremely fast pace. We are probably not paying attention to a number of threats, and we are no longer faced with linear developments, but rather with a series of novel evolutions, he said.
In the context of the security changes both on NATO's eastern flank, but also in the Middle East, Europe needs to redefine its relationship with the United States within the Alliance, considers Harlan Ullman, an analyst with the Atlantic Council organization. Europe must persuade the US of its importance. One of the things the European countries should do is prove they are equal partners, Ullman said.
Attending the event, NATO Director General of the International Military Staff, Lt. Gen. Jan Broeks said that Russia's aggressive militarization of eastern Ukraine has proven that Moscow wants to be the dominating military power in the region. In this context, he said that perceiving these maneuvers as isolated from the rest of developments is dangerous.
What NATO has done in the Black Sea region right since the Wales Summit was to raise awareness of maritime security, we participated in many exercises in the Black Sea. In 2016 we had 17 exercises in the Black Sea region. So far we have scheduled nine exercises in the region for 2017, but their number will increase, the official explained.
One of the most important issues in Romania's foreign policy is how it can contribute toward regional stability and the consolidation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Romania's Foreign Minister Lazar Comanescu told Bucharest Security Conference on Friday.
At Poland and Romania's initiative, foreign ministers from nine Central and Eastern European countries and NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller convened in Bucharest early this week to discuss better cooperation between the NATO countries in the region along with consolidating security and defence in the member states, said Comanescu.
''Romania will continue to be a determined and firm player in the promotion of consolidated transatlantic relations and defence capabilities, countering threats and promoting stability. This is the reason behind the conference in Bucharest,'' Comanescu told the event held by the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA) of Bucharest.
He added that he does not want such meetings to be misinterpreted as an attempt at regionalising security inside NATO, as the initiative offers a platform for dialogue and closer cooperation among the NATO member countries.
''Romania has a solid expertise in the region, in Southern and South-Eastern Europe,'' said Comanescu, adding that it is very important inside NATO as part of Back Sea security talks.
At the same time, Comanescu said that as far as he is concerned, the event is in furtherance of the decision made at the NATO Warsaw summit, the most importin in NATO's history to consolidate the eastern flank.
The Bucharest Security Conference took place on Friday and Saturday at the National Military Club and aims to provide an annual platform for the analysis and debate of the Euro-Atlantic security environment, with special attention to Central and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea area.