While at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, the defence minister Mihnea Motoc and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lazar Comanescu had discussions in 2+2 format with their French counterparts, Jean-Yves Le Drian and Jean-Marc Ayrault, respectively.

The talks focused on specific ways of intensifying bilateral cooperation on topics high on the European and NATO agenda, mainly the progress in implementing the decisions made at NATO Summit in Warsaw and the EU Global Strategy on security and defence.

As to the cooperation within NATO, the two Romanian ministers mentioned the favorable context created by the Defence Ministerial of October for the implementation of the decisions related to a forward allied presence on the Eastern flank, mainly the tailored forward presence of the Alliance on the Southern flank, noting the importance of the Black Sea region for the entire Euro-Atlantic security and stability.

The two officials appreciated that France endorses these propositions and its concrete contribution consisting mainly in the increased involvement of the Navy in missions in the Black Sea in 2017.

The meeting was a good opportunity to take further bilateral cooperation and identifying the best means by which the two countries could contibute to and support consolidating the Common Security and Defence Policy. The talks allowed a useful exchange of views on the implementation of the EU Global Strategy on security and defence by taking pragmatic, goal-oriented measures. The representatives of the two states reaffirmed the importance given to the efficient coordination and cooperation between NATO and the EU, in the fields identified in the Joint Declaration adopted by the leaders of the two organizations at NATO Summit in Warsaw.

Press Department