Bogdan Aurescu: It is indeed a very timely meeting today of the Foreign Ministers, including as a follow-up to the NATO Summit which took place exactly a week ago.

As far as Romania is concerned, for us the most important topic on the agenda is the response that NATO should give to the Russian aggression, in terms of consistent consolidation of the deterrence and defense posture on the Eastern Flank.

For us, is extremely important to accelerate, as fast as possible, the creation of the Battle Group in Romania, which will be under the lead of France as framework-nation.

At the same time, I will stress today the need for NATO to reconsider the philosophy, the structure and the constitutive elements of the posture on the Eastern Flank. Because the conditions are totally different from the ones we had when we started to build this posture.

We have to adapt the posture to the reality which shows that the Russian troops are in Ukraine and in Belarus. So we need to rethink everything.

At the same time, I will inform my colleagues about the decisions taken by Romania, by the Romanian President, Mr. Iohannis, to increase the spending from 2% of the GDP to 2.5%, starting with the next fiscal year.

I will also ask my colleagues, of course, to support the partner countries more, especially the Republic of Moldova and Georgia.

Reporter: What does it mean changing the posture because of the actions of Russia on the Eastern Flank? Does that mean moving NATO from a defensive posture? Just explain to us a little bit more what you mean.

Bogdan Aurescu: We need to restructure the posture in order to adapt it to what Russia is doing in Ukraine and in Belarus. Because as we speak, basically, Belarus has become another military district of Russia, and at the same time we have to take into account the presence of Russia in Ukraine with military forces.

This is very much different than the moment of 2014 when Russia illegally occupied Crimea and then, well, has built up its military presence there. But it was only Crimea which was occupied at that time, so we need to take into account this new reality and to adapt accordingly.

Sursa: Transcriptul declarațiilor ministrului afacerilor externe Bogdan Aurescu înaintea reuniunii