At the same time, Georgescu insists that he does not want to leave the alliance.
“I don’t want to leave NATO, I don’t want to leave the EU,” Georgescu said last week. “But what I want is not to kneel there and accept everything, but to take a stance. As I said earlier, we should do everything in the national interest.”
Even if Mr. Georgescu were bent on withdrawing from NATO, that goal would be difficult to achieve because far-right factions do not have a majority in the country’s parliament. It could also infuriate Romanians, who, according to a recent opinion poll, support 88% of joining the alliance.
However, in Romania’s French-style political system, the president is the head of state, commander-in-chief of the military, and responsible for foreign policy. Therefore, the presence of NATO skeptics in Kotročenj Palace could pose major problems for the alliance. Mr. Georgescu, for example, could copy Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s strategy and act as a pro-Kremlin spoiler within NATO.
A dramatic political change in Bucharest could therefore undermine Romania’s role as one of the key players in regional security in the military alliance. The country is one of the alliance’s top spenders, flies F-16 fighter jets, purchased M1 Abrams main battle tanks from the United States, and aims to open one of NATO’s largest air bases. There is. It also sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Its growing military power has transformed the country from a Balkan basket case into an increasingly prosperous nation thanks to more than two decades of rapid economic growth, even rivaling old rival Hungary in terms of GDP per capita. I won.
