THE "MANFRED WORNER'' EURO-ATLANTIC ASSOCIATION

R O M A N I A

(Euro-Atlantic Council Romania Founding Member)

(Atlantic Treaty Ass. Associated Member)

The "Manfred Wörner" Euro-Atlantic Association is a non-governmental, non-for-profit and non-political organization, founded in April 1996, in Bucharest, Romania. The "Manfred Wörner" Association was created with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Department of European Integration of the Romanian Government and express the will of the civil society at large to support Romania’s endeavors to be integrated into the Euro-Atlantic structures.

The MW Association is registered with the Court of Law of the city of Bucharest (no. 91/April 29, 1996).

In order to use the name of that who was NATO Secretary General between 1988-1994, we requested and received the approval of Mrs. Elfie Wö rner, of German authorities and of NATO HQ in Brussels. The inauguration ceremony has been organized in the presence of the foreign and Romanian officials, diplomats and military attachés from NATO and EU countries, students and journalists.

The organization aims through its legal status are to promote and to support Romania's endeavors for the integration into the Euro-Atlantic security structures, to encourage the Trans-Atlantic relationship, to develop new opportunities for regional and international cooperation, and to actively contribute in establishing a political democracy, a free-market economy, and building of a modern civil society in Romania. Through its concerns, the "Manfred Worner'' Association aims at involving itself in the debate and the process of building a new security architecture in Europe as well as in the process of establishing new, democratic policies and institutions of national security in Romania.

The members of the MW Euro-Atlantic Association are senators, deputies, diplomats, intellectuals, military, journalists, analysts, students, businessmen. All these representatives of the civil society are deeply engaged in sustaining MW Association in its actions of contributing to a new regional and continental security architecture, and as well as in endorsing Romania's integration into the North Atlantic Alliance, the WEO and EU.

The Association is therefore an open organization, which is not influenced by any political party. Even if a number of the members of our Association are members of or sympathize with some political parties, the activities they carry out together are in no way marked by any specific political debate.

As a result of the prestige the Association has gained at national level, and of the general interest in issues related to Romania's integration, four branches have already been set up in Tîrgu Mures and Cluj-Napoca, Targoviste and Giurgiu counties, and we still have more requests to open such offices in different other towns in the country.

At present The "Manfred Worner'' Euro-Atlantic Association continues the activities it has already pursued, but at the same time it seeks developing and enhancing the array of action through materializing cooperation with institutions and organizations which share similar objectives in Europe and USA.