Financiarul

Europe needs to develop an unitary strategic culture so that Europeans should look beyond their different national heritage and build a joint concept of defense and security, former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine said Tuesday in Bucharest at a conference on the perspectives for Europe’s security and defense.

In his opinion, Europe acts like a confederation of nation-states as Europeans are different so iťs difficult to reach a common point, unlike the US, a federation of states artificially separated but linked by the fact that its people are the same everywhere.

The French official says that Europe should become the power pole of NATO alongside the US, or risk being mere spectators in the Alliance. As regards the Russia-Europe relation, Vedrine says the EU needs to also define a joint strategy in this respect as well. “We have the interest of seeing Russia undergo a modernization and democratization process,” he explained.

The former French minister said that the recent decision of President Nicolas Sarkozy to bring France back into the NATO structures means in fact a re-launch of the European defense system.

Attending the event were French Ambassador in Bucharest Henri Paul and head of the European Institute in Romania Gabriela Dragan.
This has been the 13th conference of a series dubbed “Romania-France: Together in Europe” staged by the French Embassy in collaboration with the European Institute in Romania as of 2007, with a view to offering a Romanian-French perspective over Romania’s integration into the EU. It is
also organized in partnership with the Gide Loyrette Nouel Cabinet that has been operating in Romania for ten years.