Party leaders have stated during discussions with the interim president that they do not agree with sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
They did not specify any new ideas about what Bucharest should propose at the extraordinary meeting with European leaders next week.
Romania seems to want to withdraw from the international game, as if it has nothing to say or add. Interim President Ilie Bolojan, in turn, is overwhelmed by the successive crises at home and abroad, put in a position for which he was perhaps not adequately prepared.
During the discussions at Cotroceni Palace, Bolojan tried to find out from the leaders of the parliamentary parties what their objectives are regarding the country's security and how they relate to the contradictions among allies on the Ukraine issue.
The meeting took place against the backdrop of the proposal made by French President Emmanuel Macron to the Europeans: to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in case Kiev decides to engage in a peace formula.
Macron explained that Paris "will not send troops to Ukraine tomorrow," but is "considering" sending "forces to guarantee peace once it has been negotiated." The United Kingdom and New Zealand have also offered to send their soldiers to secure Ukraine.
In Romania, no party agrees with the idea of sending Romanian military to the neighboring country. As explained by UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor, "if there is peace, you do not need to maintain forces," and if there is war, "you do not want to get involved in the war." UDMR believes that Romania can provide logistical support to Ukraine, making available to the US "and those who want to be more actively involved" the necessary infrastructure, but without sending troops.
Regarding what kind of security guarantees Ukraine should receive, Romania cannot yet formulate a response. At the extraordinary summit on March 6, where the heads of state and government of the European Union will discuss this issue, Bucharest does not have much to say. However, it is expected that Ilie Bolojan will not align with states leaning towards illiberalism, such as Hungary or Slovakia, which will likely be more on the side of the aggressor, but rather seek to be alongside the major liberal democracies.
Because the question is not about entering a war, but stopping it. Even so, the parties in the Romanian Parliament have rejected the idea of sending peacekeeping troops in the event of a cessation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Social-democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu was almost as firm in his positions as AUR leader George Simion.
On the other hand, PSD agrees to an additional allocation for Defense, but only if it involves investments in the national armament industry. Ciolacu would also like to remove defense expenditures from the budget deficit, an idea that is quite original but economically irrelevant.
USR leader Elena Lasconi proposed at the consultations at the Cotroceni Palace that the remaining funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan be used for defense, as if European funds can change their destination overnight. Lasconi would also like a European defense task force in hybrid warfare, but the EU already has functional mechanisms in this regard.
Many European states continue to have reservations about sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine, especially since the equation currently has more unknowns than constants, and Romania is in the midst of campaigning for the presidential elections in May.
Any alignment with France's solution would mean a new boost for Romanian extremists in search of a new candidate after all the evidence revealed yesterday by prosecutors against Călin Georgescu.
There are duplicities and complications everywhere in the region. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Jeliazkov said that the European strategy should focus on "achieving peace by building Ukraine's power" and that "reliable and stable security guarantees are needed," but last week, the Bulgarian Parliament refused to condemn Russia as an aggressor.
Poland, which also has presidential elections in May, "does not plan to send troops to Ukrainian territory," according to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who does not exclude, however, "circumstances that could change this position."
Prague's Prime Minister Petr Fiala has also been cautious, due to the parliamentary elections scheduled for October, on a rising trend of Czech populists: "we must develop the support paths we have committed to (...) not open new ones." And Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, following Budapest's philosophy, stated that Hungary supports a peace plan without security guarantees for Ukraine.
The countries of the defunct Warsaw Pact remain shy or even duplicitous when it comes to Russia and often prefer ambiguity over principles.