First Bucharest Format (B9) Summit
Representatives from nine European countries and senior NATO officials attend the first Parliamentary Summit of the Bucharest Format (B9) scheduled for 17-19 April 2018.
Articol de Florin Lepădatu, 17 Aprilie 2018, 13:17
Representatives from nine European countries and senior NATO officials attend the first Parliamentary Summit of the Bucharest Format (B9) scheduled for 17-19 April 2018 in the premises of the Romanian Senate.
B9 Summit - co-organized by the Romanian Senate Speaker, Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, together with the Marshal of the Senate of the Polish Republic, Stanislaw Karczewski - aims to strengthen the role of national parliaments in security and defense issues.
RRA Reporter Oana Bâlă: "Summit is attended by parliamentary delegations from the B9 Member States (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary); among the guests of honor, there are Gerard Larcher, President of the Senate of the French Republic, Paolo Alli, President of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly, David Hobbs, Secretary General of NATO PA, General Curtis Scaparrotti, SACEUR NATO, General Nicolae Ciucă, Chief of Romanian Defense Staff.
Matti Saarelainen, Head of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, and Tomas Valasek, Head of Carnegie Europe, were also invited to make presentations at the debates session.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, co-initiator of the Bucharest Format, will deliver a speech at the opening.
Agenda includes aspects related to NATO's future presence, defensive and deterring posture, common responsibilities, combating terrorism, military mobility, perceptions regarding the threats participating countries are currently facing, and legislative consolidation in the defense field. Discussions also aim at increasing the mutual awareness of the approaches towards, among others, defense and deterrence, strategic communication and cyber security, burden sharing and forces’mobility or deepening cooperation between NATO and the EU.
B9 summit is an important element of parliamentary diplomacy in the context of the current international developments and aims to convey a unitary and coherent message – to consolidate the NATO Eastern Flank ahead of the North Atlantic Summit to be held in Brussels in July".
Source:RRA.Translated by Miruna Matei
