NATO is apparently terrified that “NATO-skeptic, pro-Russia candidate” Calin Georgescu could become the next President of Romania. That’s the implication of a Dec. 4 Politico Europe article which reports that Romania “has been a NATO member for two decades, and is the site of an airbase that is expanding to be the bloc’s biggest in Europe. It borders Ukraine; stares across the Black Sea at Russia-occupied Crimea; has sent arms and ammunition to Kyiv; and hosts a U.S. Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Deveselu, in southern Romania, where both Romanian and U.S. forces are based.”
“But those international ties are deplored by Georgescu, who has condemned the Deveselu missiles as a national ‘shame,’ campaigned for ending Romanian aid to Ukraine, and called for ‘Russian wisdom’ in shaping foreign policy,” Politico says.
At the same time, Georgescu insists he doesn’t want to withdraw from the Alliance. “I do not want out of NATO, I do not want out of the European Union,” Georgescu said last week. “What I want, however, is to take a stance, not to kneel over there, not to take everything. Like I said, we should do everything in our national interest.”
