The Minister of Defense has officially announced a series of very important decisions that have been taken, and which target Romania in the midst of war, and this is because it immediately brings to our attention the fact that he participated in a ceremony to start the air police missions of the Italian and Spanish air forces, their planes going to protect Romania.
The Minister of Defense talks below about the major importance of this air police mission that NATO is also carrying out in Romania at the moment, everything being thought to increase the security that our country benefits from, including when it comes to threats by air.
"It was a great honor for me to participate in the ceremony that officially marked the start of the police and air surveillance missions by the Italian and Spanish air force detachments. NATO is a defensive political-military alliance whose fundamental mission is to protect the 30 allied nations. We respond to this crisis situation with promptness, agility and in full unity.
Our commitment to complying with Article V of the Washington Treaty is assumed with full determination. Collective defense remains the cornerstone of the North Atlantic Alliance. In response to the illegal war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, important decisions were taken at the NATO level in order to strengthen the allied position on the Eastern Flank, including in the Black Sea region.
Four new multinational battle groups were promptly established, in addition to the existing ones, in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, thus doubling the Allied presence in the region. Additional fighter squadrons were also deployed for air policing missions, as well as anti-aircraft capabilities, intended to protect allied airspace.
All of this sends a clear signal that NATO will do everything necessary to protect and defend the entire Euro-Atlantic space and implicitly all allies. The presence of the Italian and Spanish military in our country demonstrates, once again, the solidarity and unity of action within the North Atlantic Alliance. Italy was among the first allied countries to respond promptly to the need to adopt additional measures to strengthen vigilance on NATO's eastern flank after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
The Italian pilots executed, together with their Romanian comrades, a series of complex missions to protect the allied airspace in the Black Sea area, in a very intense period from the point of view of the military operations carried out in the vicinity of the maritime borders of the Alliance. Already on their third reinforced air police mission, the Italian military aviators already feel at home in the Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base and I am convinced that they will perform their tasks successfully. Spain has also promptly joined these efforts to strengthen deterrence and defense measures on the Alliance's eastern border."
