Crown Custodian: Transformation in today's country, impossible without EU and NATO support

Romanian Crown Custodian Margareta said on Thursday evening that Romania's transformation in today's country couldn't have been done without the support of the European Union and NATO, underscoring that the membership to the to entities couldn't have been done without own efforts.

"When I could come back from exile and I stepped on Romania's soil for the first time, almost 30 years ago, nothing about the direction our country went to was predictable. The economic situation was terrible. Same was our image in the world. (...) The discussion focused only dirty orphanages, villages affected by poverty and violent miners on the streets of Bucharest. We, Romanians, could have never done this alone. Our transformation in the country which we are today couldn't have been done without the support of the two institutions that keep laying at the foundation of our prosperity and security, namely the European Union and NATO. Nevertheless, in the end, our membership to both institutions couldn't have been achieved without our own efforts," HM Margareta said at the Royal Palace, in her speech delivered on the Royal Soiree offered in the honour of the Diplomatic Corps.

The Crown Custodian spoke of the historic event of the first Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, as well as about the appointment of a Romanian as NATO Deputy Secretary General.

According to the Crown Custodian, "all these are just a stage of a continuous process and we yet have much to do."