New Strategy Center has organized on September 7th this year the debate Central and Eastern Europe – Security Strategies, within the Economic Forum from Krynica, Poland, having as partner the organizer of this prestigious event, the Eastern Studies Institute Foundation (ISW). The Krynica Forum is organized each year since 1990 and each edition gathered over 1,500 participants from all over the world.
The debate was hosted by Cosmin Ioniţă, the director of the research programs of NSC, and had as guests speakers from Poland, Romania, Span, Russia and Ukraine. Our country was represented by Ştefan-Alexandru Tinca, state secretary for defense policy within the National Defense Ministry of Romania.
The debate organized by New Strategy Center, which registered a large audience and the presence of many experts, brought under attention the events occurred in the last period in Central and Eastern Europe, a critical area for the security of Europe, and several methods of strengthening the cooperation for increasing stability. The discussions emphasized that a permanent state of conflict in eastern Ukraine and the militarization of the Black Sea represent a significant decrease of the trust level in this area. This crisis in the eastern part of Europe contributes to the problems affecting the central area, coagulated with the migrants’ crisis. Affected by a wave of nationalism and still not fully recovered economically, the central-Europe states are trying to find security strategies that can keep them on the euro-Atlantic path. At the same time, they need the solidarity of the other allies from NATO and from EU, so that the political and military measures decided even at the latest NATO summit from Warsaw and the policy of sustaining the democratic transformations in the states of the Eastern Partnership would not lose speed.
At the same time, from the NATO perspective, it is important that we have a balanced treatment between the northern and the southern sides of the eastern flank of the Alliance, as an unbalance of the military resources allocated would risk inducing the suggestion of a lower interest and would affect the stability in this area.
Not the least, was mentioned the fact that in both the Black Sea region and in the Baltic Sea region might be necessary the opening of a dialogue on military level with Russia in order to shape a prevention mechanism against the incidents that could occur based on the increased military presence in these regions.
The Krynica Forum is organized each year since 1990 and each edition gathered over 1,500 participants from all over the world. This event of major significance for Eastern Europe attracts the officials of the neighboring states but also from other European countries, representatives of the international organizations, academic experts from institutes and NGO’s from various fields of activity such as economy, international businesses or national security.