Ilie Bolojan announced on Thursday the conclusions of the meeting convened by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. The interim President of Romania declared that our country “will not send any soldiers to Ukraine.”
Here is the message transmitted by interim President Ilie Bolojan from the Elysee Palace, after the meeting convened by the French President:
“The present countries have agreed to continue to support Ukraine and strengthen the eastern flank. Regarding the monitoring part regarding this 30-day ceasefire that was reached, a working group will be formed to cooperate in monitoring the compliance of this agreement. In this sense, since the agreement refers to the Black Sea, a strategic area for Romania, because we have important investments, because a good part of our exports are made in the naval zone, because the port of Constanta is the most important port in the Black Sea.
Romania will participate in this working group through its infrastructure of radars, drones, air policing, and also through collaboration with Turkey and Bulgaria on demining. We will collaborate in such a way that this agreement is respected, because a safe zone in the Black Sea, which guarantees navigation for all ships, is beneficial for trade and development in this area. As I have mentioned, an important point was to provide continued support for Ukraine and strengthen the eastern flank.
Romania has a strategic interest in continuing to support Ukraine, because without such support there is a risk of the front collapsing and, in practice, the Ukrainians, by defending their citizens and territory, keep the danger at bay. Any situation in which Ukraine suffers a collapse would mean important complications and an advancement towards the western zone, which neither Europe nor Romania desires. In this sense, the aid established at last week’s council will continue to be provided and collaboration will continue to strengthen the eastern flank.”
Regarding a possible presence of additional NATO troops on our territory in the near future, Ilie Bolojan spoke about two aspects.
“On the one hand, for all the plans that NATO has prepared for this area to continue and this has been confirmed once again, that all the plans for this year are being carried out without any problems and yes, it is possible that in the near future there will be discussions for a numerical increase of NATO forces on the eastern flank, this decision is likely to be made after the NATO summit in June. In terms of guarantees that can be given, this issue has not been settled in today’s meeting. It is clear that if this were to come up after a peace agreement is in place, there would need to be practical deterrent forces, which could only act under an international mandate, such as a UN mandate, and then all these issues related to guarantees of agreements will be discussed. But this issue has not been clarified at this time, because without such a peace agreement in place and not being close to reaching one, as negotiations seem to be difficult, it is expected that these issues will be clarified in the near future,” declared the interim President of Romania.