BUCHAREST
NINE - INTERNATIONAL
News:
NATO Eastern Flank
Members Want to Boost Support for Ukraine at Alliance Summit
What's
in the news?
●
The presidents of an informal group known as the Bucharest Nine, the nations in the
easternmost parts of the NATO alliance, met in Slovakia's capital, Bratislava,
to discuss their common approach at the NATO summit.
Key
takeaways:
●
“We aim for a more robust, multi-year and
comprehensive support package for Ukraine, which will reinforce its defence
capabilities also by implementing NATO standards and increasing
interoperability with NATO,” they said in a statement to conclude their meeting,
which was also attended by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Bucharest
Nine:
●
The “Bucharest Nine” is a group of nine
NATO countries in Eastern Europe
that became part of the US-led military
alliance after the end of the Cold War.
Backdrop:
●
The Bucharest Nine or Bucharest Format,
often abbreviated as the B9, was founded on November 4, 2015, and takes its name from Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
Features:
●
The Bucharest Format (B-9) offers a
platform for deepening the dialogue and
consultation among the participant allied states, in order to articulate
their specific contribution to the ongoing processes across the North-Atlantic
Alliance, in total compliance with the principles of solidarity and
indivisibility of the security of the NATO Member States.
Members:
●
The countries in the B-9 grouping are
Romania and Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria,
the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania.
●
All
members of the B9 are part of the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO).
Go
back to basics:
●
Romania, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria are
former signatories of the now dissolved Warsaw
Pact military alliance led by the Soviet Union.
○
The other Warsaw Pact countries were the
erstwhile Czechoslovakia and East Germany, and Albania.
●
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were part
of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).