Bolojan: Romania to be part of working group tasked with monitoring 30-day Ukraine ceasefire

Speaking on Thursday in Paris at the end of the "Coalition of the Willing" summit on Ukraine security, acting President Ilie Bolojan declared that Romania will participate in the working group tasked with monitoring the freshly brokered 30-day Ukraine ceasefire agreement."The participating countries agreed to continue supporting Ukraine and strengthening the Eastern flank. As concerns the monitoring of the agreed 30-day ceasefire, a working group will be set up, which will cooperate on monitoring observance of the agreement. In this regard, because the agreement refers to the Black Sea, an area of strategic importance for Romania, because we have major investments there, because a considerable part of our exports are sent out by sea, because the Port of Constanta is the most important port on the Black Sea, Romania will participate in this working group both with its infrastructure and through collaboration with Turkey and Bulgaria on the mine clearance part. We will collaborate so that this agreement is respected, because a safe Black Sea, which guarantees secure navigation for all ships, is a good thing for trade and for development in this area," said Bolojan.He went on to say that, as a continuation of last week's European Council discussions, the Paris summit also discussed improving the European defense industry and increasing military capabilities.In Romania, we created a working group made of representatives of the ministries responsible for the defense industry, of the government, Bolojan said. The group's task is to lay out priorities, to see what industrial capacities we can integrate into the defense industry value chain, look at the availability - including from private companies - to enter such projects, so that as much as possible of the components we will acquire for the military in order to increase Romania's defense capacity is produced in Romania, because this means investments in the Romanian economy, jobs and technology transfer, the acting president explained.According to him, the conclusion of the Paris meeting was that of commitment to united action and security, as well as of coordinated action with the United States of America.