Klaus Iohannis: "I don't think it's useful to make public details about the military aid offered to Ukraine"

The authorities in Bucharest will continue not to provide data on the military support given to Ukraine, President Klaus Iohannis said yesterday, before the European Council meeting, although the head of state recently sent the Parliament information on the training of 50 Ukrainian military pilots in our country .

Klaus Iohannis stated: "It simply does not seem useful to me to make public details about military aid or where we train for the Ukrainian military. We are near the front, there is no point in giving data to the media to those who attack Ukraine. This is the explanation, but surely all these measures are approved by the competent fora and they are managed with great responsibility at our place".

The president's statement comes after last month the authorities in Kiev stated that, from the beginning of the war in Ukraine (February 24, 2022) until February 2024, our country sent 15 packages of military support to the armed forces of the neighboring country.

In the press statements given yesterday in Brussels, President Iohannis also referred to his recently announced candidacy for the position of Secretary General of NATO, a position that will remain vacant in October 2024, when the extension of Jens Stoltenberg's mandate will expire. Klaus Iohannis mentioned that his decalogue regarding the reformation and priorities of NATO was well received by the allied states and said: "Many mentioned that they thought that I came exactly with the themes that are very important, but, of course, in bilateral discussions they have questions related to other topics as well. So far, we have had discussions, so to speak, below the line, very good".

We do not know what President Iohannis means by the phrase "below the line", but in ordinary language the expression is synonymous with the candidate failing an exam. In any case, Klaus Iohannis believes that he has a chance at the position of Secretary General of NATO, says that his current candidacy has nothing to do with any hidden desire to occupy another important position within the European Union, and claims that his relations with the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who would have been supported by the US, Great Britain, France and Germany for the position of Secretary General of NATO are still very good.

President Iohannis said: "We meet with Prime Minister Mark Rutte at every Council and every Summit, and we discuss. We have an absolutely normal relationship, neither of us wants, through this competition, to ruin projects or relationships that have been built over years, on the contrary. So it's really a constructive competition. (...) Being an atypical competition, I don't think it's my role to say about the other competitor how he will do and what he will do, but I think our geography, history and certainly there are some topics where our approaches - both they are very constructive - they are slightly different in terms of the future of NATO".

In other words, unlike Mark Rutte, Klaus Iohannis believes that his assets for the position of NATO Secretary General are not "my voice and talent", nor "family" and not even physics, but geography, history and approach of the future of the alliance.

However, the president admitted yesterday that the procedure regarding the appointment of the Secretary General of NATO is not public, there is no vote, that the result is established by consensus, that the discussions at this moment are quite complex, and the political leaders do not want that in the public space the way they reacted to one nomination or another is conveyed.

"I know the reactions, but, in order to protect these sensitivities, I prefer not to say them publicly", concluded President Iohannis.

From the above it appears that nothing is certain, that the post of NATO Secretary General has not yet been promised to any of the two candidates known so far, and that neither of them wants to give up that candidacy.