Opening the Bucharest Nine meeting this morning, Romania’s Nicușor Dan said the meeting was taking place in a “dynamic international situation,” pointing to the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the threats experienced by surrounding countries, including Romania, but also Moldova.

Talking about Ukraine and Moldova, he stressed the continuing support for the two countries, adding that “we must not only make [it] declarative, but we must make it effective, because our security depends on their security.”

He also urged countries to increase defence spending and turn it into capabilities, developing a “solid transatlantic military industrial base” and confirming their commitment to act at the upcoming Nato summit in Ankara.

Poland’s president Karol Nawrocki said that when the format was first invented, “some believed that we were sounding the alarm too loudly.”

“We warned that Russia’s revisionism was not temporary; we warned that imperial thinking had returned to Europe, and that deterrence could not exist only on paper. Today, nobody can say they were not warned.”

He said that Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine “is not an isolated conflict,” but rather “a direct challenge to the entire Euro-Atlantic security order.”

Our region is no longer Nato’s periphery; it is Nato’s strategic centre of gravity.

Nawrocki said that the Ankara summit will need to send a clear signal that “Nato is united, Nato is ready, and Nato will defend every inch of allied territory.”

“The Ankara summit must therefore strengthen Nato’s forward defence posture and demonstrate that the alliance possesses both the political will and the military capabilities necessary to deter aggression on every part of allied territory.”

Poland’s president ended with strong words of support for Ukraine:

“There should be no doubt as to who launched this brutal war. We must also remain fully aware of the role played by Belarus, which continues to support Russia’s war effort and enables hostile hybrid activities to be launched from its territory against Nato allies and partners.

We must collectively make sure that if a peace is to be reached just east of our borders, it has to be just.

The nations represented in this room understand, perhaps better than anyone, the cost of complacency. We know what happens when aggression is underestimated and when democratic nations hesitate.”