Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a pleasure and a privilege for me to take part in the Eurasian Economic Summit, held in Istanbul, this European city of history and art. It is equally a reason for hope and pride since, a few months ago, my country became a full member of the European Union. In this important event today, aimed to exchange views between the EU and countries of Central Asia and the Middle East, Romania is present with two former heads of State, President Iliescu and President Constantinescu, who played a major role in my country’s accession in both NATO and the EU, as well as with senior members of the Government.

This means continuity, courage and farsightedness. As a citizen of Europe, I would like to thank you very much, Mr. Chairman of the Marmara Group Foundation, for discussing here – openly and in all honesty – about the weaknesses, fears and confusions of our world, and not only focusing on Europe’s virtues and potential. Historically, Romania has always been a European country. In the Middle Ages, important princes of Moldova or Walachia maintained links with Western Europe, some of them even paid a heavy price for their friendship with the Western world. The first European head of state that Romania had was Carol I, a German prince who became the most important leader of Romania’s modern age. Our Constitutions of 1866 and 1923 were amongst the most advanced in Europe. In 2005, together with King Michael I, I traveled all the way from Transylvania to Prague, to lay flowers on the graves of the 66,000 Romanian soldiers who died in 1945 not to free Romania but to free the European continent from the Nazis.

66,000 Romanian soldiers gave their lives in the name of a Europe of shared values. In this crucial moment of transformation of both society and people, I think that all of us should seek love and inspiration, kindness and generosity as well as sharing ideas, views and ideals. The seminars, round tables or lectures do not aim to radically change, directly and suddenly, things in the world. But they help us to understand better the state of the world, through the words of a Turkish, an Azeri, a Bulgarian, a Macedonian, a Turkmen, a Czech, a Georgian, a Latvian or a Romanian. In the last years, Romania became a predictable country, benefiting from the blessing of democracy, freedom and a coherent and solid concept of national security. Much of our achievement of the last years was possible thanks to the privatisation, enforcement of the rule of law, the implementation of the market economy, competence and professionalism of the local administration and military reform.

The age of asymmetrical risks, the current environment of security or insecurity highlight the organic connection between the U.S, NATO and the EU, and, hence, have dictated the guiding lines of Romania’s strategy for national defence. Thus, Romania’s efforts to follow the paradigm established by the new risks and threats to the stability of the international system have served not only the interests of the European Union, NATO or the United Nations, but have also corresponded perfectly to the national matrix of security. The combination of soft and hard power in a transatlantic context, as well as the strategic plans regarding the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and Southern Caucasus region have placed Romania in a privileged position for the next twenty years perhaps.

In addition to her international institutional presence, I believe that, in the third millennium, Romania will also have to rely on the contribution of her native personalities and on the symbols that ensure a permanent link between us and the civilized world, beyond temporary circumstances and geopolitical calculations. More than a half a century after the creation of the European Idea, the EU enlargement stimulates economic growth and social cohesion; it strengthens Europe’s role and influence in the world. Following the fifth wave of enlargement, by the accession of Romania and the Republic of Bulgaria, Europe has to rethink its institutions, to stand for ideals and to find people able to embody ideals, in so far as the European citizens may live in a Union of convictions and not of directions.