Romania is a secure country in NATO, and NATO is a stronger alliance with Romania, Save Romania Union (USR) national leader MP Catalin Drula told a joint plenary session of Parliament on Tuesday.

„For 20 years, Romania has been a secure country in NATO, and NATO has been a stronger alliance with Romania. NATO has not only brought peace to Romania, but also prosperity, economic development and has put us at the table of free and democratic countries, the countries of the West, just as the thousands of Romanians who took to the streets during the Revolution dreamed. Today, however, our peace is threatened whether we are talking about the war in Ukraine, terrorism, cyber threats, hybrid warfare, which Russia is waging against democratic countries. (…) Romania must be prepared. War criminal Vladimir Putin invaded a democratic country, a sovereign state and threw the whole world into chaos. Given the circumstances, it is worrying that, with a war at the border, Marcel Ciolacu, Romania’s prime minister and Klaus Iohannis, Romania’s President, have chosen to reduce the defence spending years in a row. (…) Knowing Putin’s intentions, and still taking over RON 7 billion from defence spending to move them to the Reserve Fund, is something unimaginable,” the USR president said.

„No sinecure is more important than training and equipping the Romanian soldiers. (…) Romania has a huge opportunity. We can become leaders in Eastern and Central Europe, the most important in terms of security in the region, but for that to happen we need to build a modern Romania that values democracy, that invests at least 2.5% of GDP in defence, in hospitals, schools, highways, but for this we need strong leaders.’

AGERPRES