The joint plenary session of the Parliament in Bucharest took note, in Tuesday’s session, of the letter of President Klaus Iohannis by which the Legislature is informed that the NATO Reaction Force can enter, station or transit Romania for the purpose of preparing and/or carrying out military operations, if it will be the case, in the year 2024.
“Amid a series of overlapping crises, in 2023, the international environment has become increasingly less predictable, instability being the main feature of the new security dynamics. In the context of the strategic competition between the great powers and the revaluation of geopolitical approaches in international politics, the state of conflict at the regional and global level has increased. The war in Ukraine became during 2023 one of attrition, positional, but its tortuous evolution did not lead the Russian Federation to give up on the initial declared objectives of the invasion”, reads the letter of President Iohannis, sent to the Parliament.
The situations when can the NATO reaction force enter Romania
According to the quoted document, “in the event of the untimely appearance of the premises for the triggering of a major security crisis, with possible implications on the independence and national sovereignty of Romania, the North Atlantic Council can take the decision to deploy the NATO Response Force on Romania’s territory, with the capacity of very high reaction – VJTF, in order to defuse the crisis and discourage its escalation”.
“Depending on the provisions of the crisis response plans, which are implemented at the Alliance level, the deployment on the national territory of the NATO Response Force with very high reaction capacity may include this NATO Response Force in its entirety or certain components of it, supplemented with command-control and support elements, which are established taking into account the scope, type and particularities of the operation in mind, within the operational planning process of strategic and operative level carried out at the level of the responsible commands of the Alliance “, detailed in the letter.
President Klaus Iohannis highlights that, “for the implementation, in the very short time frame available – 72 hours -, of the measures prepared at the national level for the purpose of receiving the VJTF, it is necessary to have the approval for the deployment or transit of this Force response of NATO on the national territory”.
“In this context, following the analysis of NATO requests and taking into account the security situation in the region, (…) I inform the Romanian Parliament that I have approved the entry and stationing in Romania of the NATO response/reaction force with a very high reaction capacity (VJTF/ARF) or the transit of the national territory by them, for the purpose of preparing and/or carrying out military operations, if necessary, in 2024, as well as the mandate of the Minister of National Defense to approve any changes in the structure/composition of the VJTF that may occur in relation to the planning data sent by NATO for the year 2024″, the letter also states.
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