Moderator: The question is about B9 in the process of shaping of components of the North-Atlantic Alliance? How do you feel about adapting this instrument?

President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Iohannis: My co-chair and friend Andrzej Duda and I first organised the Bucharest 9 meeting, as the name says, in Bucharest. It was 2015. At that time, we all prepared for the NATO Summit, which then took place in Warsaw. It was very well organised. As the NATO Summit approached back then, in 2015, we know these two things: that we have specific issues on the Eastern Flank, that we have a very strong interest in a strong NATO presence, a strong NATO deterrence. That on the other side, we have a common understanding of the neighbour in the East, because all B9 countries are former Communist countries. So we have an understanding which goes very deep in our history, so we decided to meet and prepare together for the NATO Summit. Of course, immediately some people came up with the idea that we sort of want to split NATO, which is nonsense. We did not want to split NATO, we want to enhance the approach, we want to prepare a couple of issues from our point of view. Because it’s our common understanding that we know the region very well, that we know the interactions very well, and we know how to react. This is what we did and the meeting in Bucharest was a very good one. Actually, we managed to decide on a couple of things, transform them into input to the NATO Summit, which happened in Warsaw and the result was very good for us. You may remember that, as a result of our discussion, of our preparations, we have projects like Enhanced Forward Presence, Tailored Forward Presence, multinational brigades, and so on and so forth. It’s not just that we talk and assure ourselves of our highest respect, we really talk about common defence, common deterrence on the Eastern Flank. This does not diminish at all the importance we give to the Southern Flank or generally to what we call in NATO the 360-degree approach. But it is obvious that despite the general interest in NATO, we have to care about our nations too, which we do and I think we do it in a very decent and efficient manner. And this is what we expect to prepare now and we did for the NATO Summit which is going to take place in July in Brussels. So, the Bucharest 9 meeting is not only positive and we usually need little time to find consensus, but it is also proactive, it is a good format for preparations of the NATO Summit and we are ready to continue to play our role.

Moderator: What should be on the agenda of the NATO Summit? What have you agreed today? I know that there has been a Declaration that was successfully signed by everyone, but if you could mention a couple of priorities both for the NATO Summit and for the trajectory of the Alliance?

President of Romania, Mr. Klaus Iohannis: We discussed a number of issues today and we all mentioned five things, which I would like to point out in front of the public today. First, we have to consolidate the Eastern Flank of NATO and this has to happen in a coherent and integrated manner. This is apparently vital for our countries, the B9, but let me come back to one question, professor Debski, you put to our colleagues. Of course, the Czech Republic is geographically not right near the Eastern Flank, but neither is Salisbury. So we see, all of a sudden, that geography doesn’t really matter, because we have to keep in mind what the old tactics used to be, but nowadays we have absolutely different approaches. And given the fantastic progress in technologies  - and I am not thinking only about cyber, which is obvious – other military approaches have evolved so much that basically geographic distance is just a factor you take into consideration, but is not a strategic factor anymore. Still we have to take care if we talk about the strong presence on the Eastern side that we have to capable to react. Being capable of reaction, making the Eastern Flank stronger means enhanced interoperability and it means to adapt NATO to the challenges of the Eastern Flank. We had a discussion on the bus with our colleagues and talked about all kind of exercises we had and found out that we have a lot of work to do. So this is not just about sounding good in a paper to consolidate. It is a necessity. Secondly, we have to be serious about NATO. Being serious about NATO means that it is absolutely not enough to go to the NATO Summit and say that we need enhanced presence or tailored forward presence on the Eastern Flank. No, being serious about NATO starts at home and means that each of us fulfils what has to be done to prepare first his own country, his own expenditure for defence purposes and then integrate this in a bigger NATO picture. So this is something which we, on the Eastern Flank, understood very well. Our three countries here, on this side, all have stepped up our defence spending by a huge amount of money and we did this because we want to defend our states but we also want to play a very constructive role in NATO. We do not want to be only recipients of security, we also want to provide security. Thirdly, we reaffirmed our engagement to what I have just said projecting stability outside NATO territory, projecting stability in the region and this is quite obvious, we have to take care for instance of our friends and partners in the East. We have to be aware of the fact that they count on us. This is not only about the military, it is obviously about reforms we have not to push, we have to help them, to be successful in the reformation of the procedures, we have to help them to become more resilient, and all of this is absolutely necessary. Fourthly, on the Eastern Flank, we have one big issue, it is called Russia, and we are determined to continue the way NATO has acted for several years now. A very serious way, as we decided to keep the communication channels open, but on the other hand to have a very strong military defence and a deterrence posture and we stick to this. And fifth, last but not least, NATO has partners and a policy which is called Open Door Policy. We have to keep that alive. NATO is not just a military alliance, it is the biggest, the most successful ever military alliance, and it is built on values. One of these values is to keep the doors open for new applicants as soon as they accept and share our values and NATO’s interests. So if we do all this – and I hope that the NATO Summit in July in Brussels will take into account these approaches – then we will make NATO stronger and better.