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President Ilves will participate in the events related to NATO Summit in Bucharest

01.04.2008

This afternoon President Toomas Hendrik Ilves will travel on a working visit to Bucharest, where he will participate in events related to the NATO Summit.

On Wednesday April 2nd, the Estonian Head of State will speak at a conference of Young Atlanticists, which is taking place simultaneously with the Summit. The speakers at the event include NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer; General John Craddock, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR); Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende; and Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, among others.

On the same day, President Ilves will also speak at “The Bucharest Conference” organized by the renowned German Marshall Fund (GMF). Ilves will speak on a panel with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacani, former SACEUR General Joseph Ralston, and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski about the current role of Article 5 of the NATO Charter.

The speakers at the conference, which will take place from April 1-3, include United States President George W. Bush, Latvian President Valdis Zatlers, Romanian President Traian Basescu, Georgian Head of State Mikheil Saakashvili, Afganistan’s President Hamid Karzai and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

At the last NATO Summit, which was held in November 2006 in Riga, President Ilves spoke at the security conference organized by the GMF on the panel entitled “Europe’s Future: Is Enlargement Still in the Cards and What Happens If It Is Not?”, where the Head of State supported the future enlargement of the European Union, but conceded that “enlargement fatigue” has developed in the Community.

President Ilves will return to Estonia on Thursday April 3rd.

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