Against the background of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden spoke to the heads of government of several Eastern European NATO countries. Who are the so-called “Bucharest Nine”?
US President Joe Biden with his Polish counterpart and Bucharest Nine representative Andrzej Duda in Warsaw
Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania make up the Bucharest Nine or the Bucharest Format.
When was the organization founded?
On November 4th, 2015 in the Romanian capital, on the initiative of the Romanian President Klaus Johannis and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.
What were the motives?
The emergence was a reaction to the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. All Bucharest Nine Member States were either part of the Soviet Union or its sphere of interest within the framework of the “Warsaw Pact” and are now part of NATO. With the exception of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, all of these countries have an external border with Russia, Ukraine and/or Belarus.
How often do the Bucharest Nine States meet?
Representatives of the nine member states meet every year. The heads of state and government have met seven times since it was founded in 2015, as is the case now in Warsaw, the foreign ministers met five times and the defense ministers met three times. The gathering in the Polish capital is the fourth meeting of representatives since Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine began a year ago.
What are the positions of the Bucharest Nine States?
In the Ahead of the B9 meeting in Poland in June 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda advocated NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.
Group picture in Warsaw: Meeting of the Bucharest Nine representatives five years ago
In May 2021, Romania's President Klaus Johannis called for a stronger military presence in the states of NATO's eastern flank at a video conference in the presence of US President Joe Biden.
At the June 2022 meeting in Bucharest, all member states endorsed the Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Johannis said of the Russian invasion of Ukraine: “NATO must be able to defend every inch of its territory.”
In October 2022, the Presidents of the Bucharest Nine States called for an end to Russian missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine, calling them war crimes punishable under international law.
The Bucharest Nine States have a say one vote?
No. While Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in particular are among the most vehement advocates of a tough course on Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in particular repeatedly backs down . At the security conference in Munich, he assessed the arms deliveries to Ukraine as an indirect entry into the war. Hungary is rather reluctant to support the European Union's sanctions against Russia and continues to have good economic relations with Moscow.
Viktor Orbán in his speech to the nation on February 18 in Budapest
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev also rejects further arms aid and does not want to support certain restrictive measures against Russia.