Ten years after joining North Alliance Treaty Organisation, Romanian officials say the country has benefited from membership overall, although they concede that the cost has been high in terms of the number of casualties during NATO missions and the money spent on military operations.

When Romania joined NATO, on March 29, 2004, the former Communist country hoped membership would guarantee both external stability and prosperous development.

“By joining NATO, Romania obtained the strongest security guarantees in its history. And that’s a good thing, considering events in the last weeks, following Moscow’s action in Crimea,” said former foreign minister Mircea Geoana.

Romania has been among the strongest regional backers of Western sanctions against Russia after it annexed the Ukrainian province of Crimea.

Last week, President Traian Basescu urged NATO to reposition its resources in the wake of Moscow’s military operations.

Romania is especially concerned that its neighbour Moldova, which has a Russian-speaking breakaway region, known as Transdniester, could be next in Moscow’s sights.

Few in Romania now question NATO membership. Last year, Sorin Ducaru was appointed as Assistant to the NATO Secretary General for Emerging Security Risks, the highest position held by a Romanian official in the organisation.

However many Romanians are sensitive to the high cost of military spending, considering that the country has been in recession for most of the past five years.

Romania has spent more than one billion euro on sending troops to serve abroad in NATO missions in the Western Balkans, Afghanistan and North Africa.

Currently, some 2,000 Romanian troops are serving abroad, more than 1,700 of whom are deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in the restive south. Their number is expected to be cut by a third this year.

More than 65 per cent of Romanians oppose any military involvement in foreign armed conflicts, according to polls.

The poll figures reflect dismay over the fact that 25 servicemen have been killed and over 140 injured in these military missions, as well as the burden on the budget.

NATO was established in the 1949 at the height of the Cold War as a military alliance to counter Soviet expansion. Moscow is strongly opposed to any further NATO expansion eastwards, seeing it as a security threat.