Poland will on Friday host an extraordinary summit of the “Bucharest Nine”, a group of eastern NATO member states, at which they will discuss the situation around Ukraine and its impact on regional security.
The meeting was initiated by Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, and will be attended by his counterparts from Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Hungary. Duda and Lithuania’s Gitanas Nausėda are today in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
President @AndrzejDuda will host Presidents of #BucharestNine @NATO countries 🇵🇱🇷🇴🇧🇬🇨🇿🇪🇪🇱🇹🇱🇻🇸🇰🇭🇺 at an extraordinary Summit in Warsaw on Friday. pic.twitter.com/icg9LmUSf4
— PLinNATO (@PLinNATO) February 22, 2022
The Bucharest Nine is a regional initiative whose goal is to coordinate the positions of the nine states on NATO’s eastern flank. It was founded on the initiative of Poland and Romania in 2015.
Those countries face the greatest threat from developments in Russia and Ukraine, deputy foreign minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk told TVP Info, and Friday’s summit will allow them to “exchange information” and “decide how to jointly react to this situation”. It would also offer a “signal of solidarity towards Ukraine”.
The group has already coordinated at a number of levels during the ongoing crisis around Ukraine, with which Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland share a border, but which is not part of the NATO.
Excellent talks today w/#Bucharest9 FMs 🇱🇹🇭🇺🇨🇿🇵🇱🇷🇴🇧🇬🇪🇪🇱🇻🇸🇰 & FM @JY_LeDrian🇫🇷, exchanging assessments on #EasternNeighbourhood #BlackSea security. Unity&coordinated measures are essential for de-escalating tensions, via further dialogue & consolidated deterrence & defence posture pic.twitter.com/uFVCokZX6u
— Bogdan Aurescu (@BogdanAurescu) February 3, 2022
In January, the foreign ministers of all nine countries spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about Russia’s “destabilising military buildup” and the need for a “united, ready, and resolute NATO stance”.
They held a special remote session with France’s Europe and foreign affairs minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, earlier this month at which Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was also present.
The calling of an extraordinary summit comes amid the growing threat of all-out war in Ukraine, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised Ukraine’s separatist regions and sent a “peacekeeping” force.
In response to those developments, Duda immediately spoke with Zelensky and offered Poland’s “full support”. He called on the European Union and NATO to introduce “tough sanctions” against Russia.
Today, Duda and Nausėda visited Kyiv for talks with Zelensky. Duda also spoke yesterday with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, who later tweeted that Friday’s summit would help “coordinate our response to Russia’s illegal actions in Ukraine and show our unity”.
In an emergency meeting of Poland’s National Security Bureau (BBN) yesterday morning, Duda met with the prime minister as well as the heads of the defence, interior and foreign ministries. Following the meeting, he said that the “situation was difficult”.
“The next few days will be full of various consultations in various formats. We must act and do everything possible to stop the invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
Main image credit: Jakub Szymczuk/KPRP
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
