In the same manner that the PCR has resisted complete integration into COMECON, the regime has also opposed Soviet plans for the fuller integration of military forces under the Warsaw Pact. Romanian objections to such integration stem from a concern for the preservation of the country's national sovereignty and a desire to limit Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. PCR leaders have described military blocs and the existence of foreign troops and military bases on the territory of other states as being incompatible with national independence and as the primary obstacles to cooperation among nations. On the other hand, party spokesmen have frequently stated that, as long as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is continued, the socialist countries will be forced to maintain the Warsaw Pact. CONDUCT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS Policy Formation The Constitution assigns to the Grand National Assembly the responsibility for establishing the general line of foreign policy and assigns its implementation to the Council of Ministers. It is the Council of State, however, that is given the overall executive functions of ratifying international treaties and establishing diplomatic relations with other states. As the head of state, the president of the Council of State is charged with representing the country in its international relations. In practice, however, the basic foreign policy decisions are made by the Standing Presidium of the PCR rather than the Grand National Assembly. Owing to the fact that the same men occupy leading positions in both party and government, decisions reached in the Standing Presidium are promulgated as decisions of the Council of State. Party spokesmen have described the country's foreign policy as being the result of the "unitary thinking and action of the leading party bodies based on the principle of collective leadership" (see ch. 8; ch. 9). Within the PCR, foreign policy decisions are channeled through the Central Committee's directorate for international affairs, which in turn transmits them in the form of directives to the appropriate government agencies and oversees their implementation. A commission on foreign policy in the Grand National Assembly functions largely to channel party decisions to the assembly for its official approval. As head of the PCR and president of the Council of State, Ceausescu personally exercised the primary decisionmaking powers in matters of foreign policy just as he did in domestic affairs. Observers of Eastern European politics also ascribe influential roles in the determination of foreign policy to Prime Minister Maurer and Foreign Minister Corneliu Manescu.