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00:00:27then professionalism helps
00:00:31Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. You are watching Diplomatic World.
00:00:34In the next 30 minutes, we will go behind
00:00:37the scenes of negotiations and agreements that could rewrite
00:00:41European history in the next 50 years. Egypt is an
00:00:44important partner of Romania, as it is a gateway to
00:00:49appearances, minor details from Africa, but also to the Middle East, and our country
00:00:51maintains historical relations with Egypt. However, there is also
00:00:55a commercial stake involved. Just last year, Romanian
00:00:59companies sold... in Egypt wheat worth
00:01:02177 million euros, but
00:01:05trade can go to the next level,
00:01:09believe Romanian diplomats. More details about this relationship and
00:01:12how trade can be improved between
00:01:15Romania and Egypt, and what are the strategic stakes of
00:01:19this diplomatic relationship, you will find in an exclusive interview
00:01:23with the Ambassador of Romania in
00:01:25Egypt.
00:01:29Madam Ambassador, welcome to Diplomatic World, I greet
00:01:33you. We are glad you are with us. What does this role mean
00:01:37that you have taken on for more than three years? You are the Ambassador of Romania in
00:01:40Egypt, a country where Romania has important stakes. Good day,
00:01:44Mr. Ungaș, thank you for the invitation. What does it mean to
00:01:47be an ambassador and especially the ambassador
00:01:51of Romania in Egypt? It's a big professional challenge,
00:01:54expressed in contemporary language. But it's a
00:01:58challenge I've known.
00:02:00I've fully realized it even before I left,
00:02:04it's a post I've wanted. Of course, on the ground it feels
00:02:07different. This theoretical challenge is one thing when you theorize
00:02:11and another when you are in the practice there, but it is an
00:02:14overwhelming post, I often characterize it
00:02:18in a good sense, meaning it requires a professional, a
00:02:22diplomat, everything he has ever learned, all
00:02:25the skills he is capable of and of course, all the passion and
00:02:29dedication. You are the first woman sent by
00:02:32Romania in the role of ambassador in Egypt.
00:02:35Yes, and honestly, I thank for the
00:02:38trust at that time, both the former President of
00:02:41Romania, Mr. Iohannis, and the former Minister
00:02:44Bogdan Aurescu, who had no hesitation
00:02:48knowing me and working for a long time with them and knowing my
00:02:51Sibiu, but sometimes I also felt hesitation, even in Romanian
00:02:54society, I must tell you, however, to my great pleasure
00:02:58and surprise, I thought that this might be a slightly
00:03:02sensitive aspect, we in Romania and perhaps even in Europe. Sometimes
00:03:05we tend to judge certain societies in the
00:03:08East a little too superficially. Well, Egypt
00:03:12is a very advanced, very open,
00:03:15very cosmopolitan country, with a very visionary
00:03:19and strategic leadership that tries to lead the country on the path
00:03:22of modernity, of course, at a pace that society can sustain,
00:03:27some people, fellow citizens or not, not through radical measures, and to my great surprise,
00:03:29there are not. There are many female ambassadors in Cairo, we are a group of
00:03:3318, we are very supportive of each other from 140
00:03:36missions, but we have all the support and
00:03:40a very good reception in Egyptian society, and I
00:03:44cannot complain from where I thought that perhaps this would be a sensitive aspect to
00:03:47overcome, it turns out that there, from the president to
00:03:51the government, parliamentarians, everyone encourages the empowerment
00:03:55of women, their entry into politics, into the economy,
00:03:58equality of rights. I must admit that being one of the
00:04:0218 ambassadors plus of Romania makes me very easy to remember,
00:04:05which helps me a lot in Cairo. Egypt is simultaneously
00:04:09a gateway to Africa and the Middle East, with
00:04:12access to the Mediterranean Sea and to the Red Sea. What does
00:04:16it mean for Romania and what are Romania's stakes there? Indeed, it is a
00:04:20country, we always say, of particular strategic importance,
00:04:24but there this reality is felt every day and at every
00:04:28kilometer of the border. Practically. It has the Red Sea to the east and
00:04:31owns the Suez Canal, which makes it one of the most important
00:04:35states on the global map of connectivity, perhaps you remember
00:04:39a few years ago a large
00:04:42container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal for five or six
00:04:45days and the prices of everything from mobile phones to cars and other
00:04:49important things from the east
00:04:53exploded, practically they freed it from they
00:04:56flowed the canal after five or six days. And then the Suez Canal saw that
00:05:0012% of world trade belongs to Egypt. What interests does
00:05:03Romania have in Egypt? Why is it a stake for us? So, regarding
00:05:07this strategic importance, it has the Red Sea,
00:05:11the Suez Canal, it has Sinai, through which it
00:05:13is part of the dynamics and balance in the Middle East,
00:05:17including this balance now full
00:05:20of tensions, a balance that is actually being sought, it is a
00:05:23Mediterranean state and considers
00:05:25itself a Mediterranean nation and also an African state, so
00:05:29located in a place on the map that makes it very relevant and
00:05:33very interesting for Romania, on the one hand for
00:05:36commercial flows, for connectivity, everything that comes to
00:05:39Europe from Asia, on the other hand. for peace in the Middle
00:05:43East, which cannot be found without the contribution, without the support
00:05:47of Egypt, why do you say that it cannot be without the support of Egypt? Egypt
00:05:50is a great regional power, on a regional
00:05:54scale or as we sometimes call them emerging powers, it is one of
00:05:57the most important states on the African continent and likewise
00:06:01from the Middle East, there are no peace formulas, there are no
00:06:05negotiation processes, there are no multilateral proposals,
00:06:09there are no important developments either in the Middle East or in Africa
00:06:13that Egypt is not part of, and in fact not only is it part of, but it
00:06:17proposes, initiates, mediates. It is
00:06:20a country that matters a lot in foreign policy at a
00:06:23global level and for us in Cairo, which is quite a
00:06:27challenge in everyday life, it is very difficult to inform sometimes
00:06:31the central office, so Bucharest, the institution in Bucharest about everything that happens, because
00:06:34I'll give you an example, there is not a day in Cairo that you don't have at least two foreign
00:06:38ministers visiting, one in one part of the day, one in the other
00:06:42part. of the day, so practically, of course, our duty requires
00:06:45us to inform at every visit, but there we are talking about
00:06:48two or three a day at the presidential level at least one a week,
00:06:52because they are at the center of resolving, hopefully
00:06:54the conflict between Israel and
00:06:58Palestine, between Iran, Israel and the US,
00:07:01depending on how we want to describe it now, for Sudan, for Libya they are
00:07:05a key country, also for the Horn of Africa, which is the entrance,
00:07:09it's the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and practically the entrance to the
00:07:12Suez Canal, a country without which you cannot find
00:07:16stability and therefore neither prosperity, security in
00:07:19Africa, and in the Middle East, and the stability
00:07:23and prosperity of these areas are very important for
00:07:26Romania too, among other things, one because they reverberate, there are interconnections with
00:07:30the security of the Black Sea and our own conflict here at the border, but
00:07:34also because they are countries where we export, if they do not
00:07:37develop or are not stable, they do not have
00:07:39reasonable incomes, they cannot
00:07:43buy products from us, we still have important
00:07:46exports in the Middle East and in North Africa. What does
00:07:49Romania export to Egypt, Madam Ambassador, and what do
00:07:53commercial exchanges look like in the last year, where do you see more
00:07:56potential? Oh, there are three questions in one,
00:08:00but they are very important because much more can be done in the economy.
00:08:03I have already stated several times for the Egyptian Press, trying
00:08:07to boost the two business environments, that I would
00:08:11like us to reach two billion in the medium term, so in a few
00:08:14years, currently in 2024 it was not a
00:08:17great year, we were at 1.2
00:08:21billion, let's understand, this is the scale. Egypt
00:08:25has been from one year to another, it is either the first commercial partner of Romania in Africa,
00:08:29in all of Africa, or the second. So, this
00:08:32thing depended from one to another, we have maintained ourselves in second place in the last two years,
00:08:36but we are, last year we concluded at around
00:08:391.2 billion in bilateral trade volume. with a
00:08:43slight surplus for Romania last year. Romania's exports in
00:08:47the first four months of the year have increased by
00:08:4950%. But we export a lot of
00:08:53cereals. We are here it is good for
00:08:56companies, for example from the agricultural sector in Romania, to
00:09:00know the reality. Egypt is the largest importer of cereals
00:09:04in the world. They need 20, 20-something million
00:09:07tons of cereals per year, they produce
00:09:1010 million of wheat, for example, just to talk about this
00:09:14bread that the government guarantees to every poor
00:09:16family, at a basic price, they produce 10 million, so
00:09:20they need 10, 12 million of wheat annually, and
00:09:24statistics in recent years show Russia in first place, it's the
00:09:27geopolitics of cereals, I would call it, Russia in first place, but with
00:09:31a decreasing percentage, Ukraine in second place, with an increasing
00:09:35percentage, and Romania maintains itself as the third
00:09:38supplier of wheat to Egypt, which gives a part of the
00:09:41strategic character, I would even say, of our
00:09:45bilateral relationship, because we supply
00:09:48the Egyptian government, the Egyptian authorities, Egyptian
00:09:51companies, the wheat necessary to ensure
00:09:54food security, just as perhaps in Romania, most
00:09:58cities consume a lot of bread and many potatoes, I know
00:10:01my own habits and what I see in our
00:10:05country, there bread is the basic food product and
00:10:08the government guarantees at a minimum price a certain kind
00:10:12of peasant bread, it's a kind of flatbread, extraordinarily good tasting,
00:10:16I like it very much and whenever I taste it, especially when it's artisan product, I
00:10:20think, maybe it's Romanian wheat in it, so we have somewhere between 10
00:10:24and 15% of the wheat market and we are a strategic
00:10:27supplier, but we also export
00:10:30chemical products, we also
00:10:34export energy products, industrial equipment and
00:10:36machinery, wood
00:10:39as well, various other types, but this
00:10:43area of cereals remains decisive and
00:10:45gives, it somehow gives our weight and importance
00:10:49for them, for the social stability of the country, however
00:10:53it is a country with economic challenges in recent years. How does
00:10:56Romania, as a member country of the European Union, position itself in this
00:11:00relationship between the European Union and Egypt? How do you see our role and
00:11:04how do you see it from Cairo? This European dimension of our
00:11:07foreign policy in EU relations with third parties has always
00:11:11been very present and I have always been lucky, but I have also built this
00:11:15luck from both sides, of a very good relationship with our ambassadors
00:11:18to the EU, because it is necessary and not only with the ambassadors, but also with
00:11:22those colleagues who deal with these regions. So. I know very well the colleagues who
00:11:26manage Egypt from Brussels, we
00:11:29write to each other, we exchange evaluations. Egypt and the European
00:11:32Union are in a golden moment of their bilateral
00:11:36relationship, the European Union and Egypt are opening. Why do you say
00:11:40that? Because two years ago, yes,
00:11:42two years ago it signed the first strategic
00:11:46and comprehensive partnership, as it is called, that
00:11:49the European Union has with a country, with a third actor. It's the first
00:11:53of this type. Within this relationship, we have been
00:11:57a great supporter of Egypt, I'll give you just one example
00:12:00when the multi-annual financial support for Egypt was voted
00:12:03in the European Parliament, there were also critical voices for certain
00:12:07reasons, but in our case, the great majority of Romanian MEPs
00:12:11voted favorably and with pleas in the parliamentary
00:12:15plenary favorably, so Egypt knows it can count on
00:12:18Romania as a close friend in the European Union
00:12:22to facilitate and make meet
00:12:25the reciprocal strategic interests between the European Union and Egypt and of course
00:12:28ours are part of that, but this dimension of friends and
00:12:32important supporter of Egypt at the EU level is known in
00:12:36Cairo. If a Romanian company would want to enter the Egyptian
00:12:40market just to then expand into other areas,
00:12:43what would be the most important or
00:12:47interesting directions? I try to
00:12:49encourage Romanian companies to come and look much more closely at
00:12:53Egypt because it is a market of 110 million, so a
00:12:56large consumer market, it imports many things, it has this
00:13:00strategic position through which you can expand, so I hope
00:13:04we have Romanian companies interested in a serious way in exports to
00:13:08Egypt, but, as you already suggested, Egypt and as
00:13:12I was saying about this truly strategic geographical
00:13:14position, in Egypt you can set up even
00:13:18production capacities,
00:13:21enough to expand to the Middle
00:13:25East, but especially to North Africa, to other North African countries and to southern
00:13:28Egypt, to Central Africa. Egypt has very good relations with
00:13:32African states, it has expertise in Libya, which at some point
00:13:36is a country in the process of stabilization and having oil resources, it is a promising
00:13:40country, also towards Sudan and towards the East, now coming
00:13:43to, I gave you the geographical directions, towards what you could
00:13:46expand and it's important, having Cairo as a base, as a point
00:13:50of support Egypt, in
00:13:53the chapter of domains. I would see them largely
00:13:57as precisely agri-food, for all of Africa, food
00:14:00security of the population is a fundamental issue
00:14:03for practically any government, even those that are producers,
00:14:07so in the area of cereals and more sophisticated
00:14:10agri-food products, including
00:14:13bottled, preserved and of other kinds, I think
00:14:17a lot could be projected from Egypt taking into account
00:14:20the needs of Africa and population growth, in the area of
00:14:24energy products. It says and machinery and equipment in energy, we already have
00:14:27some signs and on storage capacities, these would be a
00:14:31second domain, so it's the area, let's say, of food
00:14:35security, that of energy security, in which we could be a much
00:14:38bigger player, and a third area would be digitalization.
00:14:42You were directly involved in the evacuation
00:14:45of Romanian citizens after the outbreak of conflicts in the
00:14:49last three years, what did it mean for you, how did it
00:14:52all look? We saw the images on TV,
00:14:56in two and a half years of mandate I did the statistics at one
00:14:59point, I evacuated 1002
00:15:02people, the vast majority Romanian citizens, but for
00:15:06the first stages, the first months of the mandate there were also Palestinian
00:15:09family members from Gaza, what did that mean for you as
00:15:13ambassador there, how does it look? It meant a baptism of fire,
00:15:17just think that practically the bloody
00:15:20attacks of Hamas happened on October 7th, I arrived
00:15:24in the morning of October 2nd, on
00:15:28October 7th, on the morning of October 8th, it was a Sunday, I still remember
00:15:31it, I was, I became a member of the crisis cell of the ministry, with
00:15:35other institutions, the whole embassy became part of the crisis cell to
00:15:39prepare the first measures to ensure
00:15:42somehow the security of the citizens, to inform what a
00:15:45crisis cell means? Specifically, evacuations
00:15:48mean that you might not sleep
00:15:51day and night, a week, 10 days in a row, that you reach your physical
00:15:55limits, it means a very close cooperation, to the
00:15:59second and permanent between the crisis cell in the
00:16:02ministry which brings together several institutions, but also colleagues from
00:16:05Ramallah, because on the part
00:16:07of Gaza, they had to take care, to identify, to keep in touch with these
00:16:11citizens and then with us so that we have the lists for reception,
00:16:15it means a huge inter-institutional effort, not only intra-
00:16:18Romanian, so to speak, Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Bucharest and us,
00:16:22it means cooperation day and night literally with the Egyptian
00:16:26authorities, in their case, with the Palestinian authorities, I never
00:16:29thought I would call deputy ministers at 3
00:16:32AM and not have, I had some reservations,
00:16:36but it was required. the rest of the Romanian citizens and I no longer cared,
00:16:40I finally put away my manners to call Egyptian deputy ministers at 3 AM
00:16:44when you haven't even met them and to start, you know
00:16:47I'm
00:16:49also a woman, my luck is also, what value
00:16:53Egypt has for us, Egypt supported not only us
00:16:56Romania but also especially we managed to do the first
00:17:00evacuations very quickly, almost all cases
00:17:04were validated, you know, they go through some security checks.
00:17:07almost all requested cases, every time we evacuate,
00:17:11we have all their support, promptly and like me, like all
00:17:15colleagues, when you evacuate, there is no day, there is no night, there is no food, there is no
00:17:18sleep, there is only one thing, to organize the operation in such
00:17:22a way as to get your Romanians or their family
00:17:25members out of the war zone, to bring them through all of Egypt, either through Rafah,
00:17:29when they come from Gaza they exit through Rafah, which is very far from
00:17:32Cairo, or through Taba, also
00:17:36hundreds of kilometers from Cairo. to bring them safely, to accommodate
00:17:40them, to feed them, to offer them medical treatment if needed,
00:17:43and then to coordinate constantly with Bucharest for the planes that will
00:17:47pick them up. It's easy to say, but it means operations almost like
00:17:51war and the embassy is like a sort of headquarters
00:17:54when we get into such operations,
00:17:57my luck, so it was a baptism of fire, you can imagine, even my colleagues didn't know me,
00:18:01I had been with them for five days, I think I didn't even have my mobile phone for
00:18:05Egypt yet and well, the phone was there but the bank account, there are some lengthy
00:18:08procedures, for example, I still hadn't settled in as a private person
00:18:12in Egypt, I wasn't yet fully functional as a private
00:18:15person when I entered the crisis cell and I no longer worried about personal
00:18:19matters, practically I only sporadically went
00:18:22home, staying at the embassy day and night, because
00:18:26of this, two parties that are at war have divergent interests,
00:18:30not everyone was interested in getting people
00:18:33out of there as quickly as possible, I'm not talking about the states of citizens,
00:18:37but the general dynamic of the conflict and when
00:18:40you knew that on your resilience, on your efforts, on lobbying, on
00:18:44pressure, on everything you do day and night,
00:18:47depends the fact that you can get some citizens out a day
00:18:51earlier or a day later, it could have meant the death of some of them, I
00:18:55was obsessed with this, besides, even if I had had time to sleep, I probably could have
00:18:58fallen asleep with this thought when you know that the lives of
00:19:04depend on you and your team and the support of your colleagues from Bucharest? A true
00:19:08diplomat cannot but dedicate himself completely, so it was
00:19:11exhausting, it was very tense for us, this
00:19:15responsibility, I'll give you a simple
00:19:18example to understand, when we reached the idea that
00:19:22now we are getting some citizens out of Gaza through Rafah, so another wave
00:19:26of evacuations was coming, the team that always went, a
00:19:29team of three or four people
00:19:33who are Arabic speakers. and experienced
00:19:37colleagues, they would arrive somewhere around the
00:19:40beginning of the morning, the middle of the morning in
00:19:43Rafah, all day long the citizens who were coming
00:19:47were processed, elderly, young, babies, separated families,
00:19:50whom you tried to put together, after which the next night
00:19:54they would drive through Sinai, through the mountains of Sinai on the roads
00:19:58there to come all the way to Cairo, so any evacuation operation means that
00:20:01the team on the ground and I who coordinated the connection between Rafah.
00:20:05Cairo and Bucharest, the planes that
00:20:07come, we are 36 hours awake
00:20:11with the clearest mind, only that and then another
00:20:15operation came. I was very emotional until the first evacuation, which
00:20:19was of 90-something people, because it kept
00:20:22being delayed, no state had managed to evacuate yet, it was delayed for about
00:20:26four weeks and I can now tell
00:20:30you from behind the scenes of the operations, because they slowly
00:20:33become history, twice the colleagues almost left, we met at night. in the
00:20:37embassy, we prepared the convoy of cars, we put the food for those
00:20:41we were going to get out and in the end not all the necessary clearances
00:20:45came and you can imagine how you go at night, you prepare
00:20:48and you wait until the last moment, do we start or do we not start, so there were also
00:20:51some attempts that were not carried out successfully, not
00:20:55because of our responsibility, but because all the complex procedures on both sides,
00:20:58not only Egyptian, had not been fulfilled, and then
00:21:02when the first real one left and this first wave
00:21:06succeeded, the joy was great, so
00:21:09I admit these are the most tense moments for a
00:21:12diplomat, but also the most satisfying, because you save
00:21:16lives and you feel, you feel every second and
00:21:20that the success depends on your skill, your calm,
00:21:23your experience and that of your colleagues. How can Romania
00:21:26extend its influence in this region and in what framework of
00:21:30collaboration? Perhaps a good
00:21:33option is also prioritizing certain states, because we no longer
00:21:37have representations in all African states. I don't even
00:21:41think it would be the case that we could sustain them, but it
00:21:44would be important for the somewhat broader
00:21:48regional effect. to
00:21:52the intensity of contacts, not only political, but also economic, we have extraordinary
00:21:56relations with all African states, we are still very much
00:21:59liked, you know this well, Romania is really very much liked, so to establish
00:22:03some points of support and some priority bilateral relations,
00:22:07on the other hand, and perhaps I should have started with this, because I know it so
00:22:11well, to adopt a renewed plan
00:22:14of action, regarding the strategy for Africa, we have a strategy for
00:22:18Africa, but due to developments sometimes perhaps even internal politics, we
00:22:22have not focused so much on relaunching these relations which was
00:22:25desired and on the updated investment, I mean
00:22:28the political and attention investment in Africa, although
00:22:32it is fertile ground, so it would be good to set some
00:22:36bilateral priorities and of course Egypt, I don't think I still need to
00:22:39argue that it should be among them, to look at how we can implement
00:22:43the strategy for Africa, it has many examples and concrete areas, it
00:22:46doesn't mean giving billions for Africa, but with the resources
00:22:50you have to go smart, as we say now, to
00:22:53have actions, projects through development
00:22:57funds and through political dialogue, through the support of
00:23:00smart companies that make a difference there and another
00:23:03important form where there is still much to
00:23:07be done is to have Romanian institutions and
00:23:10banking mechanisms that can support
00:23:14companies that want to enter Africa, no European
00:23:17country and in general economic actors, small companies in other countries do not
00:23:21enter Africa without any guarantee, when you want to open new markets
00:23:24very promising, Africa is the continent of the future, demographically
00:23:28and because of rare minerals, for many
00:23:31other reasons, you as a state, as
00:23:35banks, as
00:23:38financial institutions must be able to support those companies,
00:23:42not let them take this risk alone, because they are going for a
00:23:45national interest and in a strategic interest and for their profit, but
00:23:49also for... our country to have on one hand friends in this area, on the other hand
00:23:53export markets, so I think we still have to work on the institutional
00:23:56construction at home to share this risk with companies
00:24:00willing to enter Africa, so that they feel
00:24:03supported, to have part of the risk assumed, to have some
00:24:07preferential loans and certainly to always have the state by their side,
00:24:11first of all or starting and ending with their own
00:24:14ambassadors and their own embassies on the African
00:24:17continent. This is my last question, Madam Ambassador. How complicated
00:24:21are negotiations with the Arab world? You know it well, you studied it enormously before
00:24:25going into this position, what do
00:24:28things look like there, in an office where no filming is allowed, where you enter without
00:24:32phones and where you negotiate for Romania in another
00:24:35culture. Here I will have to rely more on
00:24:38my previous experience than on my current one as
00:24:42ambassador. I had few things to negotiate in the
00:24:45toughest, strongest, so to speak, sense of the word in
00:24:49Cairo. Because I am very lucky and
00:24:52advantaged by the fact that Romania is well regarded, by the fact that I am very
00:24:56well known, I am a very sociable country,
00:24:59I know a lot of people and I find a lot of
00:25:02openness wherever I go, from official to cultural elites, economic
00:25:06elites, I haven't had many things to negotiate
00:25:09with difficulty because it was quite easy for me to get where I wanted, especially
00:25:13since it was a mutually beneficial
00:25:15thing, but making now an appeal to my previous experience, I won't
00:25:19give state names, but yes, I was involved in some, in
00:25:23many negotiations and dialogues with
00:25:26countries, some hostile,
00:25:29with difficult, rigid diplomats, perhaps also with diplomats with
00:25:32prejudices, professionalism
00:25:36overcomes everything, so first of all, when
00:25:39diplomats recognize each other in the end beyond,
00:25:42true, professional diplomats who have polished their skills
00:25:46so to speak, their profession for a lifetime have a... way of
00:25:50recognizing each other, just as I assume you recognize a good,
00:25:53professional counterpart from another culture, country, I think
00:25:57if you have opposite, even from unfriendly
00:25:59positions, a professional, there is a... a kind of mutual
00:26:03respect that comes quite quickly, if you feel, beyond gender,
00:26:06beyond difference, no matter how hostile the respective state is, no matter how hostile the state is,
00:26:10there is, I don't know, a solidarity, there is a kind of
00:26:13recognition, identification, coding system and
00:26:17identification, we all know what a good diplomat means,
00:26:20there are also certain, not all traits, but a
00:26:24good part of the traits are the same in any country and
00:26:29you a lot, but I must... admit that
00:26:33for the most difficult negotiations I really prepared
00:26:37a lot by reading a lot about that negotiation
00:26:40culture, processing, rationalizing a lot
00:26:43what I was going to do, where I started from, where I wanted to get to,
00:26:46including all these things of
00:26:51attire to gestures, I prepared myself for a role in
00:26:55the most difficult negotiations I have had over
00:26:58time with this area and I also did
00:27:01extensive cultural and civilizational research, so to speak,
00:27:05before, you prepare first of all for everything you have to
00:27:09say, for the negotiation and compromise
00:27:12variants, for the documentation information of those programs, so you have to master
00:27:16the subject perfectly rarely, that is I sat with the file in front of me, but rarely
00:27:20did I have to flip through it too
00:27:23often, although we are talking about very large amounts of
00:27:26information, but from this point of view my former academic career and perhaps
00:27:30also experience help me, so I didn't look, besides assimilating
00:27:34that file in the smallest detail, I read a lot
00:27:37about that culture, that civilization, where they come from, what history
00:27:40they have, how they relate to women, how they relate to Romania, what is their
00:27:44manner of social presence, so I did a kind of
00:27:47broader research, to anticipate my
00:27:50interlocutor, once it was a
00:27:54lady, but generally they were interlocutors and
00:27:57it's, but it's very interesting, for me it's very interesting and then after
00:28:01you do all this documentation on the substance of the things you want to discuss or
00:28:05even negotiate, on the cultural, social context, of
00:28:09manner, of etiquette, of the broader context of that country, to get to
00:28:12know your counterpart and finally to see how much you have achieved of
00:28:16the goals that were set for you by the authorities that
00:28:20you know are in Romania's interest and it's difficult,
00:28:23a bit like the post in Cairo, it's difficult but full of
00:28:25professional
00:28:29satisfactions and stories to tell someday.
00:28:32Thank you for being present at the diplomatic world, I also thank you
00:28:36very much for the invitation.