H.E. Ion JINGA, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative Council of Europe.
Motto: “Ducit Amor Patriae – Led by
Love of Country” (Inscription on the emblem of the 131 Infantry Regiment, US
Army National Guard)
Every year on 1st December, Romanians
celebrate their National Day. On 1st December 1918, at the end of
the First World War, Romanians in Transylvania, representing the absolute
majority of population (Fényes Elek, a 19th century
Hungarian statistician, estimated in 1842 that in the population of
Transylvania 62.3% were Romanians),
decided to unite with Romania. It was the completion of The Great Union,
as on 27 March and 15 November 1918 the National Assemblies of Bessarabia and
Bukovina – both ethnically and historically Romanian provinces – had also decided
the union with the Kingdom of Romania. Prime
Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu told the Transylvanian delegation that had brought
the Act of Union to Bucharest: “We have been waiting for…
