VIDEO Darie Cristea: For Romania, any high position at NATO or EC held by a former president would be an advantage

What are the chances that the president of Romania will replace Ursula von der Leyen as head of the European Commission, what would this mean for our country – these are some questions answered by sociologist Darie Cristea, the guest of today’s edition of the show The Power of News.

“For us, as a country, any position like this that could be held by the president is an advantage. Of course, it is not necessarily an advantage for the common man, for the working man and for the pensioners, nor does it solve various current problems. But it is not, I tell you, a position to be neglected and it can give a kind of power and a kind of weight including to our country, in various international gears. On the other hand, we must understand that these negotiations at the top of these international structures also have a specific nature. On the one hand, we see some things, yes, on TV, we hear from these analyzes made by the international specialized press, but we may not have access to the substance of these negotiations. We are talking about some positions of very high officials, which do not depend either on the public’s taste or the public’s vote and depend on certain networks created there at the institutional level, between countries and even between individuals, in the last resort”, said Darie Cristea.

The sociologist recalled the fact that the public was, at one point, dissatisfied with what they perceived to be the international performance of President Băsescu. But, he added, we don’t know if people’s perception was influenced by the discontent over the end of his second term.

“On the other hand, what we see with Klaus Iohannis is that this kind of exposure somehow followed him. In his second term, he was much more concerned with international than national activity. Of course, this job also created some comic episodes, with some drawing parallels between these trips and his reign’s taste for vacations. But let’s not necessarily trivialize these things. So it is obvious that he was an internationally involved president. With what results, we don’t really know. But again, let’s not forget that, in a way, President Iohannis was exposed during his two mandates to a series of unfortunate international circumstances, but which placed him quite well among the leaders of the European Union and the leaders of NATO. It reminds us of that anti-terrorism march in Paris, yes from the beginning of the first mandate. If I recall very well, it reminds us that he is perceived as taking the pro-European and pro-NATO direction, especially in an extremely complicated situation right now in the rest of Europe. And on the other hand, we must not forget that at the level of these international structures, and we are also talking about NATO and the European Union, however, the Eastern European countries perceive that they were not very well represented. Of course, there were exceptions, but in a way, we want a kind of balancing,” added the sociologist.

He also explained that President Iohannis has all the assets, but it is not clear if he also has a chance, since in less than a month there were news about two candidacies, to NATO and to the European Commission.

“They are two extremely high and extremely important positions in this situation, and I don’t think it helps anyone to perceive that if we fail at NATO, we take the European Commission or something like that, or we give something in exchange for withdrawing from the race for the leadership of NATO . (…) It is clear that President Iohannis wants such a position. Clearly, such a function would be positive for Romania. I don’t understand, I repeat, why we are talking about so many options at the same time, and I think there is somehow a small, small lack of communication here. Yes, I repeat, behind the scenes there are negotiations where, regardless of what we see and how much these people seem to understand each other on TV, we don’t necessarily have access to what is happening there,” emphasized Darie Cristea.

Follow the news on PSNews.ro and on Google News