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Chapter I
DEFINING NATIONAL SECURITY
INTERESTS AND OBJECTIVES
1.1. Values and principles
15. As a European country and EU and NATO member, Romania is a democratic and social
state of law, which shares the same core values as the other member states: human dignity,
civil rights and liberties, free development of the human personality, justice and pluralism,
and equality under the law.
16. In defining national security interests and objectives, the Strategy is grounded on the
following values:
dignity, viewed as a human being’s essential attribute;
civic cohesion and assertion of national identity, as common
aspirations of the community of citizens united within the state;
constitutional democracy and the rule of law, namely participative
political culture, political pluralism, separation and balance of state
powers, guaranteeing fundamental civil rights and liberties, and respect
towards constitutional and legal provisions;
Romania’s state and territorial integrity, based on citizens’ and public
institutions’ loyalty towards national sovereignty.
17. In order to promote these values, the Strategy is based on respecting the following
principles:
continuity, a principle that derives from the need for coherent policies
through which Romania builds its future and integrates within the
European and Euro‐Atlantic community. Thus, maintaining the same
vision and lines of cooperation within NATO, European Union and our
strategic partnerships, mainly the strategic partnership with the US,
provides Romania with the conditions required to increase its conflict
prevention and crisis management capacity, as well its operational
threat‐response capacity;
predictability, in drawing up and implementing national security
policies internally and at a foreign policy level, while firmly respecting
the principles, mechanisms and procedures for consultation, decision‐
making and planning rallied in order to enhance Romania’s contribution
to collective defense;
legality, a principle that involves the bona fide fulfillment of obligations
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