#Romania2019.eu/Loiseau: We trust Romania's capacity to bring Council of EU presidency to a good end

French Minister of European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau on Thursday stated that she trusted Romania's capacity to bring Council of EU presidency to a good end.

"We came to Bucharest for the inauguration of the Romanian presidency at the Council of EU, in order to hold consultations with the Romanian government related to this semesters' priorities, for this semester is going to be essential for the EU history. (...) I trust Romania's capacity to bring to a good end the presidency at the Council of EU. A successful presidency is one that is committed, has vision, is impartial and exemplary. We have a long and repeated experience of European presidencies and we will be by Romania's side to make this presidency a success," said Loiseau, in a meeting with the media.

She also mentioned that this semester would be like "a turning point," for there will be Brexit to deal with, and the elections to the European Parliament, in the context in which part of the candidates will come with a pro-European programme and other with a wish for weakening the EU.

"We both agree, the Romanian side and the French side, that all that will happen in the next six months must lead to the strengthening of the EU," said the French Minister.

According to her, the motto of the Romanian presidency of the Council of EU is cohesion.

"This presidency will be based on four directions of action. The first is convergence. For convergence becomes very important in a time when we are working on the future multiannual financial framework. We must be able to overcome all these new challenges facing the EU, while also keeping the policies that bring added value to the EU and have already proved their efficiency. (...) We know how committed Romania is to the cohesion policy. For us cohesion means fiscal convergence, social convergence and no divergence, if possible, in the rule of law," said the French official.

Another priority of Romania's presidency of the Council of EU is security, according to Loiseau.

"We support this priority and we wish 2019 to be the first year when we implement the programme that supports the European defence industries. We want to finalize the discussions regarding the European defence fund and to make progresses in the European defence field. This doesn't mean that we need to work against the Atlantic alliance, on the contrary, we need to strengthen the European pillar of this alliance, for this serves everyone's interest. Also, by doing this we will strengthen our strategic autonomy, in the context in which the EU's security stakes do not always coincide with those of our partners," said the French Minister.

The third priority mentioned by the French official for Romania's presidency of the Council is the place that the Union occupies in the world.

"In this field, we wish for the Romanian presidency to make progresses in creating a common European asylum system," stated Loiseau.

According to her, Romania's place in the world also means defending multilateral trade.

She further brought to mind that the fourth priority of Romania's mandate is represented by the European values, which also include the rule of law.

She mentioned that she discussed with the Romanian side about the Romanian presidency of the Council of EU and about the France-Romania bilateral relations. AGERPRES (RO - author: Iulia Carciog, editor: Antonia Nita; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)