President Nicușor Dan and his confusing speech to the diplomatic corps in Bucharest

Ștefan Popescu, Gândul, 27 August 2025

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The annual meeting of Romanian diplomacy

The last week of August is the most important of the year for foreign diplomats stationed in the Romanian capital. During this time, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the President present the main guidelines, priorities, the importance of strategic partnerships, issues concerning the neighbourhood, but also how the world is perceived in Bucharest and even considerations regarding recent events.

It is the Annual Meeting of Romanian Diplomacy. This year, the last days of August are all the more important as we have a new president, and his speech allows foreign ambassadors to see his vision, his ability to understand events, his outlook and how he intends to take on the role of head of Romania’s foreign policy for the next five years.

Of course, the major annual speeches on general foreign policy by heads of state are based on analyses and syntheses by institutions within the foreign policy architecture of states, but foreign diplomats also seek to observe how the dignitaries of the host country appropriate the language elements provided by the structure.

Let’s see what a foreign diplomat who had to watch the speech of the Romanian president, Mr. Nicușor Dan, saw in order to then report back to his country.

Nicușor Dan’s speech

First of all, he left satisfied that he did not have to work too hard on a late summer’s day when the weather is just right for strolling around Bucharest and enjoying the many pleasant cafés. The speech was unusually short in form and content. Then there was the lack of structure, of order in the ideas (strange for the intellectual structure of a mathematician), of division into cross-cutting themes such as changes in the international order, climate diplomacy, the lack of a geographical approach – fundamental to understanding Romania’s foreign policy horizon, the Balkans, the Near and Middle East (where Romanian citizens or people of Romanian origin live), and North Africa.

The diplomat in question undoubtedly used the word ‘pragmatism’ two or three times. However, the presidential speech made no mention of the means that Romania intends to make available to project its interests abroad, not even when it referred to its interest in the Black Sea.

Interestingly, we learn that in order to promote security in this region, ‘we must use the Bucharest 9 Format’, a useful tool, but one that is divided between the security needs of the Baltic states, the V4 countries, Romania and Bulgaria. However, there was no mention of cooperation with Turkey, the prospects opened up by cooperation in the Black Sea, the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, or European connectivity projects with Central Asia that necessarily pass through the Black Sea region.

‘We have an opportunity related to our geographical position,’ said President Nicușor Dan. ‘Romania must and can become a connectivity hub between Europe and Asia, and Africa. We must work on this. The Black Sea Strategy must be part of this strategy.’

Another idea without substance and capacity to be put into practice, given that this role is already actively assumed by Turkey, hence the importance, including from the perspective of ensuring Romania’s security, of referring to the development of cooperation with this state, with which we have a strategic partnership signed in 2011.

Critique of Nicușor Dan’s speech

Given that outer space, artificial intelligence and the Arctic are emerging as geopolitical theatres, and that the centre of the global geo-economy is shifting towards the Indo-Pacific, the ‘opportunity linked to our geographical position’ is becoming relative, and Romania should therefore have a strategy to maintain its relevance.

All this should have been stated clearly, just as the president’s vision on the issue of neighbourhood should have been presented – the development of interconnectivity, attention to infrastructure projects in the Three Seas Initiative, support for the European integration of the Western Balkans, interest in the Vertical Gas Corridor (energy interconnection between Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia). Certainly, Serbian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Albanian diplomats understood that Bucharest will continue to approach its neighbours on the same coordinates of ‘predictability and consistency’, but without claiming an active presence.

Economic diplomacy and the need for foreign policy action more focused on economic cooperation were criticised by the president in front of Romanian ambassadors, who insisted on the need for “internal efforts, in which the Presidency, the Government and the Ministry of Economy define Romania’s strategic economic priorities in dialogue with Romanian companies, which we have not had, to be very honest, and an effort is needed on your part so that Romania’s private sector can develop partnerships and economic development in the countries where you represent us.”

Another idea that would have gained relevance and credibility if the president had approached it from the angle of the regional footprint for companies with majority state ownership or attracting capital from regions with availability such as the Persian Gulf (a region that is also on the list of cooperation priorities for the US and France).

The only strategic partnership mentioned in passing by the president, only as a goal to be deepened in the economic and security fields, was that with the United States of America, although, in this case too, it would have been desirable to mention the restoration of high-level political dialogue and a strategy for Romania to remain relevant to Washington in the context of its new priorities.

And yet, what will be the major areas of Romanian foreign policy and action? Here, President Dan was somewhat more explicit: the Republic of Moldova and the diaspora – areas that are undoubtedly important given the strategic interest and historical responsibility regarding the country across the Prut River and the demographic situation, but also the advantages of bilateral cooperation with countries where Romanian communities are located, which are essential for electoral balance.

In conclusion, our imaginary diplomat, stationed in Bucharest, could conclude his briefing with the certainty that the next five years of cooperation with Romania will be without challenges.

Photo: Nicușor Dan (source: Facebook/Nicușor Dan)

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