Radio România Internațional

Tag: army

  • Military Equipment and the National Defence Industry

    Military Equipment and the National Defence Industry

    The Supreme Defence Council Tuesday approved the Plan for military equipment procurement in the next 10 years, amounting to roughly 10 billion euros. The document had been withdrawn from the agenda of the previous meeting of the Council, held on July 4, because it was not in line with the national political agreement to earmark 2% of the GDP for the defence sector. This agreement was signed in early 2015, at the initiative of President Klaus Iohannis, by all political parties in Romania.



    According to a news release issued by the Presidential Administration, the revised Plan is a multiannual schedule of procurement projects, in line with the Strategy on equipment procurement for the Romanian Army and with the Programme for restructuring, developing and equipping the Romanian Army until 2026. The Romanian Army needs a consistent and sustained allocation of resources, because the underfinancing of the defence sector would severely affect the fulfilment of core missions and the Armys operational capacity, the document also reads.



    The Presidency also mentions that in May this year Parliament approved the start of contract awarding procedures under 8 major military equipment procurement projects, exceeding 100 million euros each. In the implementation of these programmes with planned multiannual funding, the national defence industry will also be involved. According to the Defence Minister Adrian Tutuianu, these programmes include the purchase of Patriot missile systems from the USA and of another 36 F16 multirole fighters. Tutuianu recently said that these purchases will strengthen Romanias defence capacity, consolidate NATOs eastern flank and reinforce the 20-year long strategic partnership between Romania and the USA.



    The estimated cost of the Patriot missiles, including technical support and the related equipment to be bought by Bucharest stands at 3.9 billion US dollars. According to the Defence Minister, the other programmes are related to the purchase of multi-role corvettes, of systems of mobile anti-vessel missile launchers, of 8×8 and 4×4 armoured personnel carriers, of long range surface-to-air missiles, of a short range air defence system, of a multiple long range rocket launcher, as well as the upgrading of combat vehicles.


    (translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

  • April 6, 2017 UPDATE

    April 6, 2017 UPDATE

    CONFERENCE – The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, said on Thursday that in a strong democratic society the majority and opposition must join forces for the benefit of the people. Iohannis made this statement at an international conference on The Interaction between political majority and opposition, in a democracy, organised in Bucharest by the Presidential Administration and the Venice Commission, with support from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Until Friday, the event will give the nearly 100 participants a platform to discuss the most difficult aspects of the interaction between power and opposition. At the end of the conference, the Venice Commission will draw up a report laying down core lines of action for how the political majority should interact with the opposition.




    DEFENCE – The Romanian Defence Minister, Gabriel Les, announced on Thursday that the plan to equip the Romanian Army would be finalised within about a month. In an interview to Radio Romania, he said the Army would receive attack and transport helicopters, as well as new armoured carriers, given that the ones used at present are around 30 years old. The Ministry wants the national defence industry to be involved in all the Army equipping projects, Les added.




    DRAFT LAW – The draft law on the unified pay scales for the public sector was presented on Thursday in the leading structure of the Social Democratic Party, the main partner in the ruling coalition, and will be promoted as an initiative of the MPs in the ruling coalition. The president of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, said this would step up the endorsement procedure, so as to allow some of the pay rises in the bill to take effect as of July 1. Under the draft law, salaries will be gradually raised in the next 5 years, and will be calculated based on the national minimum wage. We have more on this after the news.




    CHEMICAL ATTACK – Over 85 people, including 30 children, were killed in the alleged chemical attack perpetrated in north-western Syria, according to a report made public on Thursday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Also on Thursday, Turkey, which is hosting scores of the wounded, confirmed the use of chemical weapons. The nature of the substances has not been officially identified, but the World Health Organisation said some victims had symptoms associated with exposure to a category of neurotoxins. Several states, including France and the UK, claim that President Assads regime is behind the attack, but the latter denies the accusations. The Syrian civil war started in 2011 and killed 320,000 people.

  • EU-NATO Military Cooperation

    EU-NATO Military Cooperation

    Improving collaboration with NATO is one of the pillars of the comprehensive EU defense package. In this context, the European Commission last year proposed creating a European defense fund, boosting investment in defense research, as well as consolidating the domestic defense market. European and NATO leaders have already approved 40 concrete proposals, from cyber security to maritime defense. Recently, EU foreign and defense ministers announced they offer their support for consolidating EU security and defense. This consolidation is supposed to be achieved through better cooperation in planning defense, as established at the September 2016 summit in Bratislava. The new efforts led to the decision to create a center for planning and coordinating military missions that do not have an executive nature. At this point, the EU has three such missions: in Somalia, Central Africa, and Mali. The main aim is to improve the ability to react by consolidating collaboration with NATO.



    After the security conference in Munich, EU states seem more and more inclined to form an army as a pillar of the Atlantic alliance, as a foundation for NATO, as military analyst Alexandru Grumaz told Radio Romania: “Europe has to build this pilot army around this pillar of cohesion that is NATO. We can form a European army if we have this pilot army around. We have to accept the fact that the series of crises and conflicts in Europe’s close vicinity is the new normal. Immigration or the situation in Ukraine have become the new normal, along with everything that happens in close vicinity. The states neighboring the EU in the east, the ones that have association accords with the EU, have gradually lost their motivation, such as Moldova and Ukraine, because the benefits promised to these states have not materialised.”




    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hailed the efforts made by Europe in terms of defense, and, after several years of budget cuts, member states have understood the fact that they have to increase their budgets dedicated to defense. Romania has been a member of NATO since 2004, and is among the states that are boosting their defense budget, which has reached this year 2% of the GDP. In the meantime, Romania has modernized several shooting ranges. At the same time, Romanian soldiers are attending various military drills abroad too. In the last two years, NATO and Romania have run the most extensive military drills since the end of the Cold War.



    Liviu Muresan, executive president of the Eurisc Foundation, spoke to us about the issue of domestic and foreign security: “The new approach to defense and security that Romania has is very complex, and it involves not only discussions at the level of the authorities, but also more dialog. More dialogue is also needed with the private sector, and I am referring to the defense industry, the entities that are able to perform up to the level required by acquisition programs. At the same time, a discussion of principle regarding the Romanian Army in 2017 has to take place. Let us not forget that there have been things happening in the past few weeks, and will happen in the immediate future, in terms of clarifying relations between the big actors. The new Trump administration is in a process of clarifying its relation with Russia. And, depending on this clarification, most likely these relations will be reset, including at the NATO level. At the same time, we have to understand that these clarifications of the positions are not definitive. The big powers are rearranging the chessboard, depending on the other sides vulnerabilities or weaknesses.”



    According to Liviu Muresan, we have to focus on Romania, as well as NATO and the EU, without losing sight of Russia.