the NATO summit in Romaina-behind the scenes

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the planet’s biggest military alliances; therefore its summit held in Romania was our countries largest and most important event after the Revolution in1989, as political annalists had described it at that time.

Not many people know even know – 2 months after the summit - the truth behind the masquerade shown on television. What was obvious to me was that for the extent of the summit the traffic was bearable in Bucharest, the streets were cleaner than ever before, police was all across the city and order seemed to rule everywhere. Beyond all the journalistic speculations, I believe that it is a hard thing to say what the exact consequences of the reunion our country hosted were. If you think about the matter in international measuring systems, the only conclusion that one would get to is that almost nothing had changed after the summit, nothing got any clearer, and all political disputes that existed before the event remained on the same level.

Therefore, the position that Greece had towards making official the name and status of Macedonia managed to postpone the republic’s admission to membership. As usual, this turned into a media scandal. The agreement upon Albania’s and Croatia’s joining didn’t come as a surprise for anyone, since NATO’s spreading towards these parts was a known fact. In what Afghanistan is concerned, the news were not good for Washington, as Canada’s decision to maintain it’s troops there and Romania’s and France’s deal of offering a soldier supplementation of troops weren’t sufficient for US ambitions. Another predictable event of the summit was the debate upon the installation of the anti-racket shield, which led to no conclusions, and remained on the agenda of the next summit. The problem of NATO’s spreading towards the ex-soviet space by joining with Ukraine and Georgia had also a result to be expected, as it showed not only the predictable refusal of Russian officials to have the alliance so close to its borders, but also the quarrels on the subject between NATO officials on one hand, and of the two countries targeted, on the other. In conclusion, the big decision that all media were waiting for vanished in the dust of a political show and nothing else.

For Romanians, the summit had only a cosmetically produced effect. The Parliament’s Palace got in the Book of Records and the officials of the guest countries got to see a city which seemed to be placed in a decontaminated medical facility, as it was never shown to its inhabitants until present times.

Obviously, taking care of organizing this event so politically correct and immaculate in all senses will not get us, Romanians, any better, will not make our name triumph all across the globe and won’t even make us witness a tourist boom. Our President only managed to show, again, that he is a very well adjusted individual, as he unconditionally supported US’s intentions, only to try a few days after a close encounter with the Russian President in which he would warm up the relationship with Putin. Of course that for the unadvised and the people who can’t see behind the political statements, this is a great hit in what our president’s image is concerned, because he seemed very slick in bonding with two of the planet’s greatest people. For us, the others, the political diplomacy of our country looks as blind, incapable and in a total lack of leadership as it had been for years now. What is worse is that the obvious European ascension of the past years remains without an answer from our country’s part, as we seem to be living in a country that is almost on a metaphysical search of its own, singular, trajectory.

To conclude, I believe that that fact that the NATO summit was held in Romania was only dust in the wind for us, as citizens. And I have some solid argument to support my statement with: we didn’t manage to solve the problem with the elimination of visas, no conclusion was made in the Teo Peter case (and at least this one could have been solved by the Americans, at least as a political incentive for us) and not even the image boost wasn’t as our authorities imagined it to be.

Hey, at least we got amused on watching the news about the dogs walking on the unique corridors before official conveys!