Presidents Of Romania

"We use to say that diplomacy was invented when our ancestors decided that it was more interesting to hear the messenger than to eat the messenger. Time runs faster and faster in the new century. That does not mean we must rush ahead without thinking. Our past is shaping our future, if we accept it or not; let’s try and make the best use of it."

"Within the debates on the security assessment and planning logics, two theoretical approaches have emerged. According to the first one, which is also the oldest, the world is unipolar, due to the USA super-power, which have invested during the last ten years double the amount of the military budgets of all the other states in scientific and technological research for military purposes. The world can be defined as unipolar also from the point of view of the western liberal democracy model that assures economic development and prosperity."

"Mankind has just reached a point in its history that is not only critical, but full of hope. After the tragic experiences humanity underwent on a global scale during this past century, we are seeing the birth, for the first time in history, of a universal culture of peace."

"Conflict prevention and post-conflict situations management require a more comprehensive perspective that will allow the development of the global or regional institutions complementarity. A balanced vision should take into account the interests of different ethnical and religious communities, the states obligations and their citizens’ natural rights, the conjunctural and long-term interests of the regional actors. It cannot be elaborated without involving representatives competent to express the voices plurality, questions and aspirations from billions of people. Political structures should be supplemented by civil society structures dedicated to world security issues. Only such a process to consolidate the respect for human, democracy and common security may reach the depth that only peoples’ real will can guarantee."

"Thanks to its own forces, loyal to democracy and dialogue, Romania has succeeded to surmount them for good. What democracy achieved for Romania, democracy will succeed for the whole of Southeastern Europe."

"Globalization has opened a market without borders in education. However, we must go immediately to the statutory changes and constituent reforms in education. If mobility is a canopy of trees and their roots are a network of domestic and transnational institutions tree trunk must consist of new strategic organization of knowledge. Globalization has offered communications infrastructure, in which space and time lost their meaning. The dual role of education and labor should operate based on two concepts: education and lifelong subject diversity. A subject diversity hasn’t got freedom from the tyranny of the caste spirit disciplines and research institutes. The decision could have an offer for the younger generation that would not allow him to choose between names of subjects, but between occupations, professions offering horizon, where objects are replaced by a format that allows you choose their own route, which would have created an individual biography. In this format teachers should become guardians or examples rather than just carriers of knowledge. You must create a system of education and research field of new playing fields and new players. Managers must manage interaction. Organizational areas have changed in the context in which the battle for talent management becomes a science."

"On the future, the European and world security, as well as each state security should adapt to the postmodern society. The states will probably remain for a long time from now on not only the security subjects, but also its guarantees. Meanwhile we are also forced to take into account the fact that the postmodern world created solidarities of racial, ethical, sexual groups that transcend the states. Thus, we should not see the state security only as a goal, but also as a way to assure the security for different groups and for citizens seen as persons with own interests and options."

"A world without borders in education requires, as I said, rethinking the role of institutions. It is necessary to prepare graduates with global competence, which would be able to act based on religious, technological, cultural and environmental features. We should not forget that globalization is caused by problems. Global problems require global answers."

"We now have, on the eve of the new millennium, the opportunity to establish a global policy and an unprecedented kind of human communication that will open the way to a future that we will be able to build freely and unhindered. This goal is at hand, if only we join forces."

"Cultural diplomacy can work as a laboratory where is created the global security political culture through mutual trust, negotiation and cooperation. It can identify the major risks, can conceive and apply programs of mutual trust enhancement, both within countries with a high-risk degree, but also within conflict potential regions. Within this laboratory, I believe that exists a privileged place for the former presidents in term during the transition from the communist dictatorships to the democratic states status. Their civic and reformer political leaders experience, their mutual relationships and the prestige they have gained can play a role both in conflict defusing, but also in reconceiving long-term strategies."

"Everybody is talking about war. But it is now to talk about peace and reconstruction. It is not an easy task. However, it is necessary and possible."

"Problems of the transition towards democracy, along with the separatism and the delay in consolidating the new independent states create, on their turn; risks directly connected to the states and governments political legitimacy. The mafia type cores nourishing separatism and blocking the new states consolidation put a question mark on the capability of fighting the institutionalized corruption. A threat associated to the democracy global model is the populism. Populism can lead to weakening the power and efficiency of the key democratic institutions, of the independency of justice, mass media and army. The elements along with the existing old frozen conflicts arouse concerns both about the dividing tendencies within the new independent states, but also about the terrorist elements transit to Europe as well as about maintaining the backward mentalities generating attractiveness towards authoritarian administrative models."

"The world economic crisis led to a positive reassessment of the state role as protector of the citizens against abuses coming from those who assured the 20th century states progress and prosperity: transnational economic and financial companies. A partnership between the private sector and the civil society promoting the corporate social responsibility may create the trust necessary to overcome present and future crises."

"Economic incentives to the stable zones neighbouring the conflict-torn area is an emergency, as well as the foremost political instrument for maintaining zonal equilibirum and persuading, all the countries in the region of the positive model's validity."

"The laws that govern our States are based on the presumption of innocence. Along the same lines, we need to adopt a common code of conduct for cultures and peoples based on a presumption of goodwill. Romania also has profound respect for United Nations action aimed at avoiding, or at least restricting, armed conflict and at guaranteeing dignity and fundamental rights for every human being."

"The important contribution of the preventive cultural diplomacy to the security architecture in Europe and in the entire world will be, with no doubt, the one of wars that would have not taken place due to creating a few democratic dialogue mechanisms and to strengthening of the collaboration with the civil society."

"In our contemporary world, states can no longer be conventionally divided in blocks because the reactions following different interests lead to changing the alliances and the opposite parts on different topics or subjects. On one hand, it is a reflex of the contemporary world democratization, but also of the governments’ pragmatism forced to respond to the needs of their own citizens."

"Victory means first and foremost security. Only the consolidation of NATO's Southern flank, through the soonest extension of an invitation for Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria to become full members of the Alliance, can assure it in the long term. It is safer for NATO, and safer for the whole region, to have the Alliance firmly implanted in the region. For our countries, which assumed the same risks of any member state, without the guarantees and benefits of actual membership, a deadline after 2002 seems an unfair and remote prospective."

"In shedding the constraints of communist dictatorship, together with a deepening of the globalization process, our countries have suddenly become vulnerable. The speed with which criminal organizations have set out to conquer new territories is in stark contrast to the necessarily slower rhythm of institutional development. Still fragile, the protection which the rule of law can offer from the perverse and toxic globalization of organized crime remains inadequate and legislation deficient, while civil society continues to react timidly."

"The security, prosperity and peace that we imagine to be the pillars of the twenty-first century will, in fact, be achievable only if we are able to act now in order to clear the path. We are convinced that the documents which we are to adopt at the end of this session will establish an appropriate framework in that direction."

"If we are complacent, we might awake all the demons that have troubled the life of Europe: racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism can spread like a fire, whenever the vigilance of governments and civil society decreases."

"It is true that, during a political debate or sports event inadequate language occurs. Beyond that, I assure you that the Romanian people have a long tradition of common sense and respect for diversity."

"We carne for we believe the decisions we are bound to take will prove that global political creation and structural transformation can be effected successfully in times of peace, and not only against the backdrop of prevailing violence; we can unite around the dividends and promises of peace, and not only in solidarity against the evil, the unjust, or the war. We came because we believe in the United Nations."

"When we attempt to expose the mechanisms of the totalitarian regime, it is the case not to forget that its architects and beneficiaries demonstrated no form of scruple or remorse."

"Imported from the USSR, the communist ideology justified the assault against civil society, against political and economic pluralism; it justified the annihilation of the democratic parties, the destruction of the free market, extermination by assassination, deportations, forced labor, and the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people. Behind the mask of "socialist humanism" lay concealed the most profound contempt for human beings as individuals."

"Evoking now a period which many would wish to forget, we have spoken both of the past and of the extent to which we, people today, wish to go to the very end in the assumption of the values of liberty. These values, prior even to being those of Romania or of Europe, flow from the universal, sacred value of the human person. If we now turn to the past, we do so in order to face a future in which contempt for the individual will no longer go unpunished."

"The lesson of the past proves that any regime that humiliates citizens cannot last and does not deserve to exist. Now, all citizens can freely demand that their inalienable rights should be respected, and the institutions of the state must work in such a way that people will no longer feel humiliated. During this period of transition, much has been said about the moral crisis of society. It relates to numerous aspects of daily life. I am certain that we shall leave behind the state of social mistrust and pessimism in which we have been submerged by the years of transition if, together, we undertake a genuine examination of the national conscience."

"I do not want to become "the President who condemned communism". I want only to be the head of a state which considers that this condemnation relates to normality, that, without this condemnation, we shall move forward with difficulty, we shall move forward while continuing to carry on our back the corpse of our own past. All that I want is for us to build the future of democracy in Romania and the national identity upon clean ground."

"We have the permanent duty to react, using all the political and institutional tools at our disposal, for combating the expression of intolerance and discrimination, in any form. We have the democratic obligation to act so that every citizen feels that he is protected by law therefore having the proof of the solidarity of his fellow citizens. Democracy is the only political regime where diversity can truly be respected, for the common benefit."

"The education has the main vocation of conveying, through moral and pedagogic instruments, a message of accountability for the lessons of the past, and knowing the history, the traditions and the culture of the ethnic groups living in our country is the first step towards a progress in good understanding and cohabitation."

"In this global quest, we cannot overlook activities such as the illicit trafficking in human beings, arms, drugs and counterfeited goods, which can also fuel significant resources to terrorist networks and keep regional conflicts open. In many parts of the world, including in Romania's neighborhood, this is far from being a myth."

"I myself have often criticized the imperfections of our political system, the inefficiency of certain institutions. But it is not the institutions of the state that are guilty, but the manner in which we make them work, the manner in which many think they should utilize them for the achievement of their own interests."

"For the citizens of Romania, communism was a regime imposed by a political group self-designated as possessor of the truth, a totalitarian regime born through violence and ended through violence. It was a regime of oppression, which expropriated five decades of modern history from the Romanian people, which trampled law underfoot and forced citizens to live in lies and fear."

"A democracy without memory is one that finds itself in grave suffering. We must not forget, in order to avoid the errors of the past."

"My country's particular experience in Southeastern Europe and the wider Black Sea area reveals that meaningful cooperation between the U.N. and regional organizations is decisive both on conflict management, and in handling responses to transnational non-conventional threats."

"Our ultimate aim should be to see the day when the international community is able to deal with each and every security challenge anywhere, anytime, by better pooling together existing resources and capabilities for responding to unlawful violence."

"Six decades after the U.N. was created as a bulwark against abuse and terror, basic human rights and liberties are still baffled around the world as a not so uncommon occurrence. Many regimes still get the shivers at the mere utterance of the word "democracy"."

"Romania stands as a catalyst for cooperation in her region, and is keen to bring up this experience at the international level."

"We leave behind a huge political investment of trust and hope on behalf of our people. It would all however have been in vain unless we will show positive political will in making these constructs come to life. We need to strengthen our common universal frame, and we all also need it to work better with regional and national levels in a consistent matrix of subsidiarity and complementarity."

"Romania has taken for some time now the view that protection against security threats is not anymore just about taking a stand at one's own border; we have to go where these challenges originate and take them up with resolute action and sustained investments."

"But freeing international relations from ideology does not and must not necessarily lead to confrontation between civilizations. By definition, confrontation is alien to civilization."

"The dynamics of the world have changed. This creates many questions for the international community, governments, politicians and political forces. So far the answers have been few and inadequate. But life does not wait. States and people have concrete needs as well as hopes and ideals. Their natural tendency is to act in order to fulfil them, whether or not there exists an organized international framework for harmonizing divergent interests."

"The structure of the international system, at the end of this century, is experiencing radical changes, particularly the end of the post-war bipolarity, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the cold war. Many new peoples have gained their right to self-determination and democratic development, long repressed by totalitarian regimes."

"The recent past obligates us to create mechanisms and institutions designed to serve as the society’s antibodies against these illnesses of the spirit that are racism, antisemitism, xenophobia."

"The global vocation and aspirations of my country are closely related to its European destiny. The focus of Romanian diplomacy is therefore oriented towards the democratic stabilization of our neighbouring region and its effective connection to a united Europe."

"Granting the Western Balkan states a clear perspective of integration into the Euro-Atlantic and European community is the most effective way to consolidate stability and security in the region and in Europe."

"Transparency is nowadays an efficient weapon in stamping out corruption and fraud of any kind involving public funds."

"Fraud involving the public purse is all the more reprehensible, and must be severely punished, in that it cannot take place other than with the involvement of politicians and public officials, i.e. those who are entrusted essentially with defending and promoting the public interest. Their dishonesty undermines trust in the State, in the country's institutions and in democracy."

"It is our duty, the duty of all of us, to help the people understand that, alongside rights and freedoms, they have legal and constitutional obligations, that it is in their interests and in the interests of society that fraudulent acts should be severely punished, and that they should not become accomplices, including as a result of passivity or non-involvement, in such anti-social behaviour."

"The consolidation of democratic values, building an efficient and competitive market economy, strengthening the country's capacity to play its role as a security and stability provider in the region, are all aims closely interrelated with our national interest."