NATO'S OFFENSIVE Eastern flank, forced march

Poland's and Romania's presidents are currently presiding a reunion of the CEE leaders. The stated goal of the reunion, hosted in Bucharest, is to mark the beginning of a regional cooperation program in the field of security, under NATO's "umbrella", with an extension to the level of foreign policy, even in the conjugated development of the economy and of its pertaining infrastructure.

The presence in the event of NATO's deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow, as well as his previous visits to Bucharest are not coincidental at all. Just as the joint Polish-Romanian presidency of the event isn't coincidental either. Formally launched with the architecture of the Alliance, a political, military and economic platform of the US and its allies in Eastern Europe is in the process of being built in Eastern Europe, meant to offset the increasingly clear "drift" towards Moscow, which tempts an increasing number of EU-member Western countries.

The latter are showing a trend of becoming, at least from a politically-ideologically point of view, "uncertain allies" of Washington, and therefore, they have to be pressured through a more subtle, and more contemporary version of the typical American fencing policy of, which used to be the defining trait of the Cold War period.

The significance of the event is proven by the chronology of other similar events which took place earlier, and of the statements made by people "in the know", from Romania or from abroad, in the exercising of official qualities. It was Polish president Andrzej Duda, who set the tone, by submitting, in 2014, the idea of an energy "community" of the Black, Baltic and Adriatic Seas. The proposal has already put forth another step in the margin of the UN General Assembly session of October this year, when 12 EU member states have attended the "Meeting of leaders in the Black - Baltic- Adriatic Sea", held upon the proposal of Croatian president Mrs. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

Regardless of titles and labels, today's reunion comes as another of a series of initiatives concerning the same target, of developing regional cooperation, as quick as possible after the fall of the Iron Curtain and of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. Certainly, Romania, Poland, Croatia and the Baltic states are strong promoters of this new direction and have accepted the role of awarded to Poland.

Most likely, the event in Bucharest follows the new NATO concept, of "framework-nation" - proposed by Germany in 2014 and assumed at the level of the Alliance, a was apparently "stolen" and implemented by Poland. The concept involves the common development of forces and capabilities, by a group of states brought together voluntarily and which use the NATO structure as a base. Speaking of Poland, it needs to be noted that the recommendations of today's reunion will be formulated " in preparation for the NATO summit in Warsaw" of 2016, according to the communiqué of the Romanian presidential administration.

The same communiqué states that " another recommendation (ed. note: of the reunion) will target the development of the infrastructure in the area, from every point of view ". Easy to connect with the statements made five days ago by the US ambassador in Bucharest: "If it wasn't for the corruption in Romania, highways would have been built much faster", but also with the interest of the National Anti-Corruption Department, to the area of companies guilty of criminal acts related to the construction of the road infrastructure, and the maintenance of the railroad etc.

The countries present at the reunion, together with the Romanian and Polish organizers - Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic - represents what increasingly looks within NATO, as the "Eastern flank", and for all of these things the watchword is "faster ".