Romania's President Iohannis, Polish counterpart Duda to host Bucharest Nine summit meeting on May 10

Romania's President Klaus Iohannis and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda will host next Monday a Bucharest Nine (B9) summit. According to the Romanian Presidential Administration, the event is organised at the initiative of President Iohannis and will take place in Bucharest in the presence of Duda and with the participation via videoconference of the other B9 heads of state, as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The Presidential Administration points out that the high level meeting agenda includes preparations for the NATO summit to be held in Brussels on 14 June, with special emphasis on strengthening the transatlantic relationship, NATO's deterrence and defence posture on the Eastern Flank, and the NATO 2030 reflection process. The meeting will also take place among the recent worrying security developments in the Black Sea region. Also addressed by the summit will be dialogue and co-operation with Eastern Neighbourhood partners, support for strengthening their defence capabilities, as well as increasing the resilience of NATO and NATO member states partners to current security challenges. The Bucharest Nine (B9) is an initiative launched by President of Romania Klaus Iohannis and President of Poland Andrzej Duda in which NATO member states on NATO's Eastern Flank - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary - participate. The first B9 summit was held in Bucharest in November 2015. Subsequent summits took place in Warsaw, on June 8, 2018, and Kosice, on February 28, 2019. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN -author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)