So what’s the deal with the Russia-NATO-Ukraine-Georgia puzzle? During the Bucharest Conference and while reading related articles I naturally came to think of this. I also had the chance to witness two off the record, Chatham House rules, panels during the Bucharest Conference that debated this issue in particular. The first one, titled “Guns and Gas: The Role of NATO in Europe’s East”, ended up discussing Georgia and geopolitics (no wonder, since Mr. Saakashvili was one of the panelists), while the other one debated the topic “Does Ukraine care about NATO?”. Continue reading ‘A Russian Affair’
Published on
April 5, 2008 in
Miscellaneous.
Tags: anti-missile shield, Basescu, constituents, Ellen Tauscher, GMFUS, MAP, NATO Summit, political representation, Romanian foreign policy, Serbia.
Ellen Tauscher (US Congress Representative), Craig Kennedy (GMFUS President), Traian Basescu (President of Romania)
The opening session of the GMF Bucharest Conference was a collection of keynote addresses, delivered firstly by Romania’s President, Mr. Traian Basescu and then by US Congreswoman Ellen Tauscher.
Basescu did nothing extraordinarly special. His speech was far from being as coherent, bold and charming as his open interventions, which is a pity. I trully wish people who can be great speakers by nature would continue to use these skills even in the most official contexts, when theoretically some other protocol rules apply (which, by the way, I do not consider to be the case). Secondly, the main ideas President Basescu put forward were the great support given by Romania to Georgia and Ukraine’s integration in the Membership Action Plan (we all now by now that this has failed), and also Romania’s interest in clear-cut mechanisms for the functioning of the anti-missile shield. Continue reading ‘Basescu & Tauscher: Serving your constituency…’