Summit of Euro- Atlantic Partnership Council Madrid, 9 July 1997

Statement By H.E. Mr. Petru Lucinschi, President of the Republic of Moldova Mr. Secretary General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my great pleasure to participate at this first Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Summit the foundation of which we have greeted from the very beginning. Let me follow Mr. Secretary General's invitation by tackling briefly the subjects proposed by His Excellency. The Republic of Moldova believes that the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council is an important pillar of European security in a dynamic ongoing development. The fact that self-differentiation constitutes its basic element allows my country to further participate in the achievement of common European security goals in strict conformity with its constitutional provisions on neutrality. Starting from these premises, my country is faithful to the goals set up by its Partnership for Peace Individual Program. In this regard I consider it necessary to evaluate the situation in my country which continues to face certain difficulties which are closely connected both to regional and to general European security. Here I refer to the conflict in the Eastern part of Moldova and to the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of my country. Our optimism derives from the exclusively peaceful means by which the settlement of this problem is handled, with a direct and active involvement of the OSCE and mediating countries like Russia and Ukraine. The Memorandum and the Statement recently signed stand for the fact that things are evolving in an appropriate way. As for regional cooperation, our perception is that this represents one of the essential conditions for maintaining security in the region and, implicitly, in the whole European area. In our opinion, the more multilateral arrangements of different regional initiatives and organizations will function - the safer our continent will be. In this respect good relationship with neighboring states is undoubtedly a measure consolidating regional stability. Basing on this reason we intend, together with Romania and Ukraine, to create two new Euro-regions (the Upper Prut River Region and the Lower Danube River Region). This will be an area for fruitful cooperation with an aim of consolidating security and stability in the region. However, regional cooperation can and should be extended in the case of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council as well. The crisis situations in Europe have shown the potential for undertaking common actions by NATO and some PfP countries. These situations demonstrated at the same time the efficiency of cooperation between the global structures like the UN and NATO in cases when everyone's goal was clearly defined. As a consequence, we should think more insistently of the importance of efforts co-ordination between the existing international organizations, without any hierarchisation, avoiding in this way overlapping or futile competition. This matter is of a high importance since no structure can assume alone the responsibility for the security on the continent. Thank You for Your attention !