President Iohannis: Sibiu European summit, one of Romania's most important projects

AGERPRES special correspondent to Strasbourg, France, Florentina Peia reports:

President Klaus Iohannis said Tuesday that one of Romania's most important projects while holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2019 is the EU summit to be held next year in Sibiu, underlining that Romania intends to have a successful office tenure.

"There will be a very good opportunity for Romania to prove not only that it believes in the future of the European Union, but also that it can be involved in this future, that Romania is able to respond to these challenges, because Romania will hold the presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2019. We intend to be successful and we are going to make efforts to achieve a stronger and more effective European Union. (...) One of the most important projects to Romania is the summit to be held at Sibiu on May 9, 2019. The summit is very important for Romania, because it will be the first summit organised by our country, but its real importance is related to what will be discussed at the meeting, because the summit will be dedicated to the future EU, and Romania and the Romanians are determined to be involved in this future, to be part of the decision-making process on the future of the EU. I am convinced that together with all the other participants at the summit in Sibiu we will create a credible, feasible project that will make the EU a powerful new design," Iohannis told a joint news conference with EP President Antonio Trajani.

He reiterated that the lack of connection between politicians and citizens is one of the great problems of the EU. He said that while in office, Romania will have a number of files - Brexit, the multifinancial framework, migration, the European elections - to manage.

"We believe that we will be able to find clear answers and approaches. We need clear, easy to understand, logical answers, clear approaches and better communication. We do not need a lack of transparency, half-hearted answers to the questions that European citizens will pose us. We want to be more open, to communicate better and to provide clear answers, even if that will not necessarily be the answers expect of us, but all this will succeed in improving the link between citizens and politicians. The wrong way would be to find simple answers to complicated questions. That is an approach that we see from populist politicians around the world, it is not necessarily something specific to Europe. The complicated issues need complete and easy to understand answers; we do not need simple and wrong answers to complicated questions," said Iohannis. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Rodica State)