As a Black Sea country with a land border of more than 600 kilometers with Ukraine, Romania has been particularly hard hit by the effects of the recent Russian war.
Also because the country also borders on the Republic of Moldova, which Bucharest governments like to advocate as their advocates.
Moldova is considered a potential further target of the Russian conquest mania and would actually be in acute danger if the Russians were able to establish themselves in the Odessa area.
For this reason alone, it is only natural that the war against Ukraine and its manifold effects on south-eastern Europe formed the central topic of talks by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier during his visit to Bucharest on Wednesday.
Michael Martens
Correspondent for Southeast European countries based in Vienna.
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Steinmeier was last in an official capacity in 2015 as foreign minister in Romania.
At that time, in a speech in Sibiu (Hermannstadt), he addressed Moscow in clear words: "Here a foreign nation pretends to be the patron saint of an ethnically related minority in another state, Ukraine, and thus justifies violations of the Sovereignty of this state.” However, that would open “Pandora's box – then the concept of the sovereign nation-state could hardly survive in the 21st century”.
Seven years and one pipeline sunk in the Baltic Sea later, Steinmeier is repeatedly confronted with the consequences of Pandora's open box at the stations of his inner east expansion - previously Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw and Košice were recently presidential stations.
Measured in terms of population and economic strength, Moldova has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than any other neighboring country, and the number is also high in Romania.
By the end of April almost 820,000 people from Ukraine had already crossed the Romanian borders in the east, although by no means all of them stayed in the country.
But even in this state, which has been a member of the EU since 2007, the question of the integration of refugees arises in view of the unforeseeable end of the war.
Steinmeier's program in Bucharest included a visit to a school where eight classes with refugee children are taught by Ukrainian teachers according to Ukrainian curricula.
A program that allows Ukrainians to use the railways in Romania free of charge has just been extended for another month.
According to Romanian media reports, Romania has so far received 450 million euros in refugee aid from the EU.
Romania is looking to close ranks
Other issues currently facing Romania include strengthening NATO's eastern flank and the role of Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta in supporting exports from Ukraine.
The country can no longer fall back on its own ports, since Odessa is not conquered but blocked.
The first freighters with Ukrainian agricultural goods have now left Constanța.
But there are difficulties with the access routes.
Spurred on by the Russian war, Bulgaria and Romania in particular are looking for closer ties in the region.
A few days before Steinmeier, Romania's German-speaking President Klaus Johannis had welcomed Bulgarian Prime Minister Kyrill Petkow, who had just returned from a stay in Kyiv and has since been more resolute in his support for arms deliveries to Ukraine.
In the future, Bulgaria and Romania want to cooperate more closely, among other things, in energy policy and expand their transport connections, for example with an additional bridge over the Danube.
They also want to achieve their common goal of joining the Schengen zone more quickly.
According to a report by the AFP news agency, Steinmeier in Bucharest called for more work from other EU countries, especially when it came to taking in refugees from Ukraine.
Romania and Germany have done great things, "but caring for and protecting refugees is a pan-European task in which other countries must participate".
With regard to a threat to Moldova, Klaus Johannis said he saw "no concrete evidence" of a threat to the country, but Steinmeier qualified: "We live in times when it is difficult to rule things out."