Looking Forward to NATO’s Bucharest Summit

14:45, 15 Nov 2007
RUSI, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET

Link to map: multimap

 Excellencies,
 Ladies and Gentlemen,

 It is a real pleasure and a personal honour to address such a distinguished audience at the Royal United Services Institute, the most senior think tank in the world and, certainly, one of the most respected for its achievements both by senior officials and the academic communities.
 I would like to praise your 180 years’ tradition in excellence and especially RUSI’s outstanding contribution to changing positively the security environment during the Cold War and in the turbulent years which announced and opened the Twenty-first century. 
 As for our tradition, allow me to recall a more recent event in Romanian history. In January 1994, I had the privilege to sign the Partnership for Peace Framework Document at NATO headquarters. By that time, I represented the first country to join the Partnership as Minister of Foreign Affairs and, as some of you might remember, the chances of Romania to accede into the Alliance were rather slim, to say the least.
 Fortunately, the entire Romanian society worked hard, and first of all the Romanian army, and the international events accelerated on a fast pace. Therefore, I have the opportunity today to address you, as Minister of Defence of an EU and NATO member country, on a topic that nobody would have foreseen thirteen years ago – ‘Looking Forward to NATO’s Bucharest Summit: The Transformation of the Alliance’.

 Therefore, in the following minutes I would like to share with you several ideas on the next NATO Summit that Romania will host, in Bucharest, in April next year. It will be a perspective from the host nation and my personal level of ambition will not be to approach all potential topics, as this would be, moreover, the task of an official spokesperson of the Alliance.
 
 My presentation will focus on three major issues. First, I will briefly touch upon the significance of organizing the Summit, for Romania, as a host nation. There are several topics that we appreciate as relevant for this major event’s agenda and they will constitute the second part of my presentation. Finally, I will conclude with a perspective on the potential role of the Bucharest Summit in the broader context of NATO’s process of transformation.

 Romania is committed to make the Summit a success, both from organizational and political standpoints and the internal preparations for the organization of the Summit have progressed significantly.

 It might be interesting for you to note here that the Summit is a major event also when considering the logistical aspects. According to the late figures provided by our colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we might expect a number of delegates which can count up to 3000 persons, around 3500 journalists and 7000 security staff personnel. It would be fair to say that the Bucharest event might be the largest Summit in the history of the Alliance if there will be an agreement on organizing a meeting with the Partnership for Peace countries. As for the Ministry of Defence’s specific duties in sharing the burden in the organization of the summit, I am following closely their effective implementation and everything is on the right track.

 The Summit will take place in the Palace of Parliament, a landmark of Bucharest and one of the largest civilian buildings in the world. Although the event will imply very strict security measures, it is our desire to keep the city working and living in its normal, day to day, parameters. 

At the same time, although Romania will not be the only actor to determine the political agenda of the Summit, I will be frank with you and confess that we would like to see clear and significant achievements delivered at the meetings of NATO Heads of State and Government.

 Before starting any presentation of our perspective on the possible topics and outcomes of the Summit, allow me to introduce a word of caution. The issues that I am going to introduce are based on existing thinking at the level of the Alliance.
 As there are still 5 months until the event and the consensus-building in the NATO headquarters and in the capitals is a work in progress, my presentation is nothing but a snapshot of our priorities for the current state of play. Thus, we are fully aware that the unfolding political events and NATO’s conceptual dynamic towards the Summit will definitely enhance the existing picture and it might be useful to rethink the terms of this presentation after the upcoming ministerial meetings of NATO Foreign and Defence Ministers.

 We would like the Bucharest Summit to be an expression of the enhancement of the trans-Atlantic solidarity, of NATO transformation and of its comprehensive approach to security.
 Therefore, the Summit must project the image of a strong Alliance, adapted to the current security challenges, capable to ensure a balance between its commitments towards the Euro-Atlantic security and its natural role of contributor to global security.
 There are three main points which are equally relevant for us: first, advancing enlargement and the relations with our partners; second, the military transformation process and last, but not least, ensuring the further success of our operations and missions.
 First, the Romanian government sees the potential invitation of candidates from the Western Balkans to join NATO at the Bucharest Summit as a very important deliverable of the Summit. Therefore, we welcome the Riga Summit decision to re-confirm the open doors policy, mentioning 2008 as the moment for a possible enlargement decision. Such a decision will symbolically resonate with our geostrategic position and Romania’s commitment to firmly support the process.
 It is useful to remind here the historic success of the enlargement in advancing stability, peace and cooperation in Europe. I am positive that we all agree that NATO enlargements always meant and mean also today more democracy, more stability, more security and rule of law, as well as an efficient democratic control on the armed forces.
 At the same time, NATO enlargement is a performance based process, and each country will be judged on its own merits. We need to be realistic and admit that, as the NATO Secretary General said at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, in Madeira, Portugal: ‘there's no automatic door into NATO. No tickets are being punched for next year's Summit in Bucharest’. Candidates are continuously encouraged to go on with their reform process as the only way to success (and NATO accession) is performance in reaching the standards set by the Alliance.

 As you may know, Romania attaches the utmost importance to the enhancement of NATO relations with partners. After the Istanbul and Riga Summits, the development of NATO co-operation with partner countries has been further deepened and embraced new phases of development. We believe that we should continue our efforts towards strengthening cooperation with partners, both in the area of defence transformation as well as in our practical co-operation in operations.
 Our partnership relations are a two-way street: we share our experience and offer defence assistance to partner countries, but we also benefit from their contribution to peace and stability in the world. We welcome the interest expressed by some partner countries in contributing to the NATO Response Force and we think that their commitments will further improve our Allied capabilities for crisis response.
 Partnerships should be further strengthened by using more wisely the PfP instruments as a driving force in wider reforms in partner countries, including security sector reform.
Romania remains open to sharing our experience with the new PfP members (Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina) and offer further incentives by enhanced PfP support. 
 We do support a more focussed approach to the regions of high relevance for NATO: the Balkans, the Black Sea, Caucasus and Central Asia and, obviously, the areas where NATO is operationally engaged.
 The development of our relations with contact countries will also contribute to stability and security across the Euro-Atlantic area and beyond. NATO’s missions and operations have demonstrated the political and operational value of these relationships.

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

 At the next NATO Summit, we also need to push ahead with defence transformation. And in my opinion, we should take a serious look at how we resource our operations and other activities.
 We should have as a priority to ensure capabilities for operational requirements, by finalizing ongoing initiatives started in Prague, Istanbul and Riga.
Bucharest might bring new capabilities initiatives, as well.
 We should start looking at the capability development initiatives through the lens of the current operational requirements and link more closely the operational aspects to the transformational ones.
 From this perspective, the Alliance should place a premium on ensuring the necessary capabilities for all our operations, especially Afghanistan and the Balkans.
 These aspects will ask for enhanced political dialogue among the Allies in order to build consensus on how to tackle transformational challenges ahead. Perhaps the most critical question which one can ask, in a context were all issues related to capabilities development are important, would be: where and how to prioritize?
 In this context, it is important to continue to emphasize the transformational function of the NATO Response Force (NRF), aiming at extending its catalyst effect on interoperability and national forces as well.  I assume that you followed closely the discussion after the Noordwijk defence ministerial. The military advice on generating the forces for the NRF might have been of interest. As you know, the concept of NRF will not change and the Force will be able to perform all missions it should perform. The military advice that is now considered in the Alliance, named the “gradual approach”, is to decrease the number of forces NATO will have in stand-by for the NRF, without changing the concept and the missions, and to generate more forces when then situation arises.
 The Summit decisions should focus on deliverables that underline the Allies’ commitment to a successful process of transformation. Initiatives ensuring information superiority and capabilities responding to new threats should be further advanced. 
 We would like the Summit to move us as closely as possible to a NATO missile defence capability. Our support for missile defence initiatives is based on the principle of NATO’s security indivisibility and has its roots in a common threat perception shared by all allies.  We believe that the creation of a NATO missile defence capability, complementary to the planned US missile defence system element in Europe, will ensure an equal level of protection for all allied countries. We hope that, by the time of NATO Summit at Bucharest, we would be able to agree on the future course of action at the level of the Alliance in this field.

 From the ISAF operation in Afghanistan, the training of Afghan and Iraqi security forces, the article 5 Operation Active Endeavour in the Mediterranean Sea and to the stabilization operations in the Balkans or the support mission to the African Union in Darfur, the North Atlantic Alliance advances peace and security on three continents. NATO operations and missions will be, obviously, of high relevance for the Heads of State and Government in Bucharest and we expect significant decisions to be taken in order to ensure our success in the operational framework as well.
 I can reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s missions and operations. We are going to increase our contribution in the Zabul province of Afghanistan next year with the creation of a Romanian Task Force, starting from the existing manoeuvre battalion and we will also provide an operational mentoring and liaison team as a contribution to the training of Afghan army. ISAF is a high priority for our government and we do hope that the Summit will bring decisions for the enhancement of NATO’s comprehensive approach for Afghanistan.
 As for Kosovo, we fully support the Troika process and believe that a negotiated solution is the best guarantee for the long-term stability of the Western Balkans. A positive solution, satisfying both parties involved, would help finishing work on the European security architecture, thus ensuring a stable, conflict-free Europe. Therefore, Romania will maintain its military commitments in Kosovo during 2008.

Distinguished participants,
 
We are all aware of the complex process of transformation the Alliance has been undergoing. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that NATO is continuously reshaping itself. During its almost 60 years, the Alliance has successfully adapted to changing circumstances.
 The new international security environment after the Cold War and in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, led to three premises in the philosophy of the transformational process. The fundamental premises of the transformation process are: new threats involve an adequate response by new missions; new missions require new capabilities and, finally, new missions and capabilities must entail new frameworks of cooperation and new relations.
 Today, the Alliance is continuing to transform militarily and politically. The political and military interdependency is more relevant than ever.
NATO is taking a global approach to security, differing from the old Cold War logic focussed on territorial defence. The role of today’s armed forces significantly changed, with focus on roles in stabilization and reconstruction, with political impact upon the building of local institutions and defence institutions.
 Today’s security challenges require forces and assets that can contribute to regional security and confidence building measures, through partnership, assistance and common training programs. This is, once again another argument of the relevance of further enhancement and deepening of NATO partnerships.
 We also need to rely on forces and means able to prevent and counter terrorism, to develop early warning and situation awareness, to contribute to countering unconventional threats towards Euro-Atlantic security.
 Such an endeavour should be supported, on the one hand, by political will of member states and transatlantic solidarity, and, on the other hand, the military capacity of NATO to enable it to perform the full range of missions. Both aspects entailed, after the end of the Cold War, what has been called as the “reinvention” of the Alliance.
 I am confident that the upcoming high level reunion will bring further inputs to the conceptual developments related to transformation. As I have already mentioned, transformation was determined by the Alliance’s need to adapt to security challenges. More often than not we think of transformation as a military process focussed on improvement of forces and capabilities, of their deployment and sustainability. We also have to understand that this process is underlain by fundamental concept development. I would like to exemplify with the case of Afghanistan where NATO allies committed to an enduring role to contribute to peace and security in the region. The tasks assumed by allied forces – support to Afghan authorities, training and equipping of the security forces, counter-narcotics actions - involve important changes in the way our troops should be prepared to fulfil their missions. There is a need for a political and conceptual framework at the level of the Alliance ensuring efficient cooperation between nations and international organizations where military and civilian instruments are applied in a co-ordinated way.  And rather there is a key role for NATO in promoting this so-called ‘comprehensive approach’ and making sure that it is effective in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

 We have to admit that progresses were achieved in our transformation endeavours in theatres, as well as in our capitals and in Brussels, but more has to be done. New multinational co-operation initiatives, that Romania joined, were established within NATO in order to support forces deployment and sustainability (such as for strategic lift and logistics). New mechanisms of special operations forces co-operation have been put in place, aimed at increasing the ability to train and operate together, including through improving equipment capabilities.
 Progress is continuing in the implementation of a theatre ballistic missile defence system for the protection of allied forces and of the Alliance Ground Surveillance programme.
At Riga, the NATO Response Force was declared fully operational. At the same time, our work on information superiority continued, with a view to improving information sharing and protection of key information systems (and I am referring here to the need of preparing specific responses for defending against cyber attacks and we hope to have clear decisions on the issue by the time of the Summit). Currently, attention is paid to the conceptualization of military support to reconstruction and stabilization.

 It is my firm belief that transformation of the Alliance should be perceived as a continuous process, not an event. From this perspective we view the Bucharest Summit, not as a singular, isolated event, but in a broader picture comprising progresses after Riga and looking forward to the 2009 anniversary Summit. The processes of military transformation continued at Prague and deepened at Istanbul and Riga. I am convinced that the Bucharest Summit will stand for another historic moment, bringing yet another impetus to a dynamic and continuous process.
 
 Against this complex background, what would be the implications for the future of NATO transformation, and what is the Bucharest Summit going to bring? Of course the answer to these questions will be the result of a unitary effort, but as a representative of the host nation my goal was to present just several ideas regarding the gathering of NATO’s Heads of State and Government in our capital, in April next year.

 Ladies and Gentlemen,

 We attach great importance to keeping an in-depth and continuous dialogue with our allies to develop an ambitious and substantial concept of the Summit, in light of NATO’s major responsibilities and objectives. Therefore I’m looking forward to have a productive discussion during the questions and answers session and I can assure you that we are going to value your inputs.
 We are confident that the decisions that will be taken at Bucharest will further demonstrate that the Alliance is adapting to the Twenty-first century security environment, through its operations, transformed defence capabilities and deeper engagements with countries in and beyond the Euro-Atlantic area.

 Thank you very much for your attention.