ROMANIA'S FOREIGN POLICY AT MID-YEAR: THE CALM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BUCHAREST 000876

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/NCE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/30/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR RO
SUBJECT: ROMANIA'S FOREIGN POLICY AT MID-YEAR: THE CALM
BEFORE THE NEXT STORM


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Classified By: A/DCM Bryan Dalton for 1.4(b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: President Basescu is back in charge
with a new, stronger presidential mandate, and he has
reasserted himself into almost all aspects of day-to-day
foreign policy formulation. Consequently, Prime Minister
Tariceanu and his new cabinet have been marginalized by
Basescu on key foreign affairs and security matters, a
marginalization accelerated by the lack of leadership depth
in key ministries. An inexperienced Foreign Minister gets
poor marks across the board, including from Tariceanu
himself. Defense Minister Melescanu--who has the most
experience among Tariceanu's ministers--has also been
gaffe-prone, but has recently walked back his remarks in time
to manage what appeared to be signs of growing unhappiness
among the uniformed services and professional bureaucrats at
the MOD. However, the political turmoil surrounding the
suspension and return of President Basescu may have,
ironically, strengthened the domestic consensus on a shared
foreign policy vision. All mainstream parties now seem to
have accepted the need for a clear firewall between the
domestic and international audiences. Russia's harsh
rhetoric on CFE and other issues has also contributed to
strengthening that consensus in Bucharest. After initial
hiccups in the first half of 2007, the way ahead is as clear
now as it had been on the road to NATO and EU memberships:
maintain the firewall, recognize President Basescu's primacy
over foreign and national security policy; and prepare for
growing Romanian assertiveness in critical national security
areas like the Black Sea, Kosovo and the Western Balkans, and
on Middle East/energy security matters. End Summary.


2. (C) President Basescu returned to office May 19 with a
decisive three-quarters majority vote rejecting his removal
from office. Basescu's return heralded a weakening of the
domestic forces that had aligned themselves against him.
Prime Minister Tariceanu's April purge of pro-Basescu cabinet
ministers was followed by the installation of a considerably
weaker national security team. Tariceanu now is saddled with
an inexperienced Foreign Minister who is pilloried regularly
in the press and a gaffe-prone Defense Minister who has had
to reverse himself on a number of issues including on
Romania's overseas military commitments, the stationing of US
military forces in Romania, and the prospects of joint
exercises with Russia. However, the overall consensus in the
three mainstream political parties (PNL, PD, and the PSD) on
the broad outlines of Romania's foreign policy has been
Romania's saving grace. This consensus includes, inter alia:
a focus on stability on the eastern and western borders;
deepening Romania's relationships within multinational
institutions; and energy security. However, with all
political actors positioning themselves for the upcoming
European Parliamentary elections (and four more back-to-back
elections ending with a Presidential election in the winter
of 2009),there will remain enormous temptations for rival
politicians to toy with sacrificing political continuity in
the hopes of achieving a short-term political gain, similar
to last summer's flap over PM Tariceanu's abrupt call to
withdraw all Romanian forces from Iraq. The challenge for us
will be to continue to stress the need for Romanian leaders
to strengthen the firewall between heated political discourse
and our bilateral and trans-atlantic equities.


3. (C) Having now achieved its quest for EU and NATO
entry, the GOR must now grapple with the devil in the
details, whether it be in making NATO-rational defense
procurement decisions or bringing Romanian taxation policy in
line with EU interests. Meanwhile there are hints that the
learning curve for a more mature conduct of foreign policy
may be beginning to flatten. The GOR foreign policy agenda
seems to have settled on five basic themes: (1) focus on
immediate national security interests including stability on
the eastern (e.g., "Greater" Black Sea Policy) and western
borders (Balkan/Serbian integration into Euro-Atlantic
structures); (2) broaden and deepen relationships within
multinational institutions including staking out Romania's
"space" in the UN, OSCE, NATO and EU; (3) greater
concentration on economic development, including in energy
security and enhancing relations in the Middle East,
especially Iran; (4) a new out-reach to Latin America and
Asia. (5) Relations with Moldova remain a special case and
does not fit neatly in Romania's foreign policy agenda
because of national and cultural baggage.

Dysfunctionality
--------------


4. (C) Between February and April 2007, and with the
imminent prospect of suspending President Basescu, Prime

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Minister Tariceanu declared that he would begin reorienting
Romania's foreign policy eastward, arguing for "more balance"
in the relationship with the EU versus the more
transatlanticist instincts of President Basescu. The
Liberal-Democrat DA Alliance that led Bucharest into the EU
was replaced with Tariceanu's "ultra-minority" government
(encompassing roughly 22% of parliament) in April 2007. The
new cabinet, by then purged of Basescu's Democratic Party
(PD) allies, also had replaced several key experienced
Liberal Party ministers, including those in the defense,
justice, interior and foreign affairs ministries. This
changed the composition and character of the Supreme National
Defense Council, the deciding body for all important foreign
policy and national security issues.


5. (C) Tariceanu's removal of Foreign Minister Ungureanu
in February under the pretext of a scandal involving Romanian
contract workers arrested in Baghdad for taking pictures
inside a coalition facility in Iraq was seen as a first major
step at cleaning house of those seen as too close to Basescu
(and inadvertently too close to the U.S.). The MFA saw
several reassignments of officials over the next few weeks
which negatively affected our closest contacts. The list of
qualified and experienced officials within the government
became increasingly shallow, leaving few strong candidates to
fill important positions including the ambassadorships to the
U.S. and the UK. When Foreign Minister Ungureanu was
replaced by the inexperienced Cioroianu--over Basescu's
objections--Cioroianu's missteps underscored his status as a
novice. In the wake of Cioroianu's famously mediocre
engagements with his European counterparts, an obsession with
his media image, and his now infamous micromanagement
tendencies within the Foreign Ministry, even the Prime
Minister has admitted privately that he made a mistake
nominating Cioroianu to office.


6. (C) Another major personnel change was replacing the
U.S.-friendly Defense Minister Sorin Frunzaverde with the
less predictable Theodor Melescanu. Melescanu, a former
foreign minister, is the only "seasoned" professional in the
group of new Liberal ministers, but since his April
appointment he has contributed his share to the Tariceanu
government's public gaffes. In the short time that he has
been in office, Melescanu has recommended legislation that
placed a troop cap on the presence of US forces for Joint
Task Force-East both outside the parameters of our Defense
Cooperation Agreement and without consultation with the U.S.
Melescanu also has walked back the GOR from approving F-16s
to replace Romania's aging MiG-21 fleet, in what many
Romanian national security experts here (including one former
defense minister and two experts in academia) see as a
blatant attempt to increase the chances of more lucrative
offers from European-based aerospace industries like Gripen
and Eurofighter. The Defense Minister recently put the
Dassault Rafale on the table during the last (June) CSAT
meeting, catching everyone by surprise on an issue that
already had been studied for two years. It is generally
assumed within the uniformed services that Melescanu will
recommend the Gripen over the CHOD's and President Basescu's
stated preference to lease F-16s on the path to purchasing
the JSF.


7. (C) When MFA officials were asked if they had
comments about Defense Minister Melescanu's off-hand
suggestion that Romania, Bulgaria and Russia conduct joint
military exercises in the Black Sea within the PfP framework,
they consistently argued that Melescanu more than any other
official in the GOR is an experienced diplomat who knows what
he is doing. Within Melescanu's own PNL party, our contacts
insisted that he has a reason for everything that he does.
However, the following day the front pages of several
newspapers ran stories of Russia's extremely negative
reaction to the Melescanu offer, including an acerbic comment
by Russia's senior Defense advisor General Samanov comparing
the Melescanu comment to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. While
Melescanu has softened his rhetoric about scaling back
Romania's international military commitments in Iraq, he
continued to raise eyebrows at the June NATO Defense
Ministerial when it appeared Romania was walking away from
the Alliance's long-standing position on Kosovo. Again,
Melescanu corrected Romania's position at the last minute to
join the consensus, but still left an aftertaste for Allies
to ponder about Romania's reliability.

Consensus
--------------


8. (C) Despite the various dysfunctional aspects of the
government--some of it is institutional and some rooted in

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personalities--there remains a deep consensus across party
lines on Romania's strategic interests; foremost of which is
the U.S.-Romanian partnership. Even though there have been
occasional missteps and misstatements, there remains enormous
continuity and consistency in Romanian foreign and security
policy decisions at the end of the day. Romania always seems
to find its way back to the fold. Nevertheless, we cannot
always assume that some common views held by the USG and
Romania (especially on NATO/EU frontier issues, multinational
institutions, and economic development) reflect shared
interests. TThe decade-old strategic partnership between the
U.S. and Romania (since President Clinton's 1997 visit to
Bucharest following the NATO Summit in Madrid) is strong,
even if there is room for more maturity in the relationship.
There are few countries willing to go the extra mile to work
with us, which Romania will do provided they do not perceive
that their immediate interests are being taken for granted.
In the larger context of trying to assert Romania's interests
when they diverge somewhat either within NATO, the EU or even
with the U.S., the GOR (and especially President Basescu)
wants to make sure those allies and partners must not assume
everything or take Romania for granted. The GOR has its own
interests to promote; fortunately those interests tend to be
consonant with ours even if they are for different reasons.
But as evidenced by the Kosovo issue, Romania's are not
always identical to our own.


9. (C) One impediment to consistency in Romanian
policymaking is the lack of a clearcut national security
strategy. The last version from 2006 is more sermon than
strategy. Our MFA contacts who contributed to the draft
described a process through which the interagency turned the
strategy into a "Christmas Tree" with every ornament any
government agency and ministry could hang on it. The final
product was then wholly rewritten in a rambling style (even
in Romanian) that made the strategy essentially
unintelligible. As a result, there is no framework document
to keep the sundry foreign affairs actors from wandering off
a task. Some issues, like Romanian deployments to Iraq, have
national importance but are not fixed within a strategic
context and are easily overshadowed by the internecine
conflicts among the political leaders--again raising
questions about Romania's reliability.


10. (C) Recognizing some of the problems Romania has with
the partners' and allies' shaky confidence in Romania's
consistency, Cioroianu announced on July 11 that he intends
to present a 10-year foreign policy strategy in September.
Though Cioroianu has initiated an MFA "Consultative Council"
made up of former heads of state and foreign ministers
(including, among others, former presidents Illiescu and
Constantinescu, and former foreign ministers Geoana and
Ungureanu),we do not expect the results to differ much from
the current general consensus on the GOR's strategic
interests. The results, in fact, will likely parallel the
process that developed the last national security strategy;
that is to be all things for all people. This situation is
unlikely to change until the political dynamics between the
President and the government does, and this will not occur
until there are new parliamentary elections to rebalance the
relationship between the President, government, legislators
and the voters.


11. (C) Meanwhile, a resurgent President Basescu is again
presiding as Commander-in-Chief over the 12-member Supreme
Council for National Defense (CSAT). The first CSAT meeting
following Basescu's return reaffirmed on June 28 that Romania
would maintain its international commitments, including its
troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. That decision thus
ended any debate over whether Romania would drawdown from
Iraq, an issue that Tariceanu kept trying to force since
spring 2006. It goes to show that--domestic politics
aside--Romania continues to be a faithful partner in the
Global War on Terrorism. In fact, the Prime Minister may
have learned his lesson--not to challenge the most popular
political figure in Romania--and we expect that the Prime
Minister will now work to build upon the path that President
Basescu set out in the first place, at least until the next
opportunity to gain a domestic political advantage comes
available.
TAUBMAN