Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to permanently send troops to his country to boost NATO’s eastern flank.
“I hope that soon we will have German soldiers permanently on the territory of Romania,” Ciolacu said, referring to a German announcement last week to permanently send 4,000 troops to Lithuania.
He was speaking Tuesday at a joint press conference following a meeting between the two leaders in Berlin.
Ciolacu raised concerns Russia’s war in Ukraine may drag on and said he expected the German government to deploy more troops to the east. NATO is holding a summit in Vilnius in two weeks.
Scholz didn’t immediately react to the Ciolacu’s demand and it appeared to come as a surprise to the chancellor, who has not communicated plans to send troops to Romania.
NATO stationed troops from countries including France in Romania which has a long border with Ukraine. The U.S. has said that it will keep its troops in Romania until at least this fall.
Both leaders expressed pessimism about the possibility of the war in Ukraine ending soon. “We probably would have expected the conflict to end with (the Ukrainian counteroffensive),” Ciolacu said. “Unfortunately … the publicly available data does not give us that much courage on that.”
Scholz said it was never to be expected the Ukrainian side would make rapid advances from one day to the next, saying: “The moment when a major breakthrough is achieved should not come so quickly.”
The chancellor also sought to play down Ukraine’s hopes of getting a clear timeline for NATO membership at the Vilnius summit. He said talks would focus on “deepening cooperation” with Kyiv through “a joint council.”
“It is also clear that no one can become a member of a defense alliance during a war.”
