Romania seeking CARICOM support for UN Security Council seat bid

At the 21st ministerial meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) of the CARICOM Caribbean Community held in Nassau, Bahamas, Romania's Deputy Prime Minister Ana Birchall delivered the Romanian Government's strong support for the country's bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

According to a government press statement, Birchall delivered a speech to a plenary session of the event in which she unveiled Romania's long-term vision and commitment to the Caribbean region, the foreign policy objectives and initiatives of the country on a bilateral and multilateral level, and expressed interest in identifying new opportunities for sectoral cooperation with the CARICOM countries, including for the time Romania will be holding the rotating presidency of the EU Council in H1 2019.

"She also emphasised the importance of regional integration issues in the overall EU-Caribbean relationship as a whole, and informed about Romania's intention to have a regular exchange of views with CARICOM's rotating presidency and to establish contacts with CARICOM bodies in areas of common interest, communicating Romania's readiness to provide technical assistance for projects relevant to CARICOM countries at individual or regional level."

At the same time, Birchall extended an invitation letter from Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila to the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, for a visit to Romania, an invitation that was accepted.

"On the side-lines of the COFCOR meeting, the Romanian deputy prime minister had a series of bilateral meetings with the heads of diplomacy of all 14 participating states, as well as with Irwin J. LaRocque, CARICOM secretary general; Kenneth Merten, deputy assistant secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs of the US Department of State; Marie Claude Bibeau Canada's minister of international development and La Francophonie; Guy Sevrin, Belgium's ambassador to Jamaica, reaffirming Romania's strong will to become an active partner of the region in CARICOM's relationship with the EU, to boost political and diplomatic dialogue and trade and to create the necessary legal framework for the development of bilateral sectoral cooperation."

The Caribbean counterparts expressed their interest in co-operating with Romania, when Romania holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in areas such as climate change, food security, renewable energy, vocational training, emergency, oil and gas management, tourism, mentioning some actual projects in that respect.

The Romanian Government also shows that this was Romania's first time attending the ministerial meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), at the invitation of CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque.

"In addition to Romania, the US, Canada, Germany, Belgium and Norway were invited to attend the CARICOM meeting. The main objective of the Romanian official's attendance was to promote Romania's bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council and win the support of the 14 CARICOM states at the election scheduled for June 2019. Romania previously held a non-permanent seat in 2004-2005," according to the official statement. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)