Geoana on upcoming NATO Summit in Madrid: Good news in store for Romania, Ukraine, transatlantic relationship

NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said on Friday in Cluj-Napoca that the upcoming NATO Summit in Madrid (June 28-30) will be a historic one which will bring good news for Romania but also for Ukraine, the transatlantic relationship and the Alliance itself.

"It will be a historic summit with a profound transformative outreach. We will focus on strengthening NATO's eastern flank presence, the leaders will announce the size and the specific contributions by various allies. We expect good news for Romania too. The summit will adopt the Strategic Concept. I anticipate it to significantly reflect the Black Sea region because it is of vital strategic importance to NATO. Also, we are looking forward to President Zelensky's participation, as support for Ukraine's just war against the Russian aggressor must continue. We are pleased with yesterday's exceptional news from Brussels confirming the European perspective of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine and their official EU candidate status; we welcome this achievement," Mircea Geoana said, answering questions by journalists.

He added that he hopes that apart from the good news for the NATO countries, there will also be "very bad news for Russia".

"In an extended geography approach, for the first time in the history of NATO summits we will have the leaders of Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea also attending. So this is an extremely important summit, there is good news in store for Romania, good news for NATO, for the transatlantic relationship, there is good news for Ukraine and - hopefully - very bad news for the Russian Federation," Geoana said.

The Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca and the Aspen Romania Institute organized on Friday the debate on "NATO and the European Union's role in Romania's modernization", with the participation of NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana and UBB Rector, Professor Daniel David. AGERPRES