Romania and NATO

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Corina Cristea, 28.09.2016, 14:22

A member of the
North-Atlantic Alliance since 2004, Romania has taken a series of decisions to
consolidate its membership. One such decision was made public during a meeting
of the country’s Supreme Defence Council on Tuesday and refers to the
transformation of the Rovine 2nd Infantry Brigade in Craiova,
southern Romania, into a NATO multinational brigade. The move forms part of a
series of measures established at this year’s NATO summit in Warsaw.

Apart from
Romania, the multinational brigade also enjoys the participation of Bulgaria
and Poland. Other countries may also take part, but this is to be decided
during talks between defence minister Mihnea Motoc and the allied states,
president Klaus Iohannis has explained:

We will make
the announcement when we know exactly who will take part and with how many
troops and what this multinational brigade will look like, because this also
depends on how NATO sees this multinational brigade. We believe we will be able
to announce the initial capacity of this brigade sometime in 2017, including
who takes part and with how many troops, and then we will begin the
organisation stage. In the most optimistic scenario, the brigade will become
operational in 2018.

The Romanian
president also spoke about the situation of the defence industry, the need to
reorganise the Romarm company and for its production to be correlated with the
needs of the Romanian army with respect to equipment.

In the meantime,
the first six F-16 planes to be used by the Romanian Air Force will be
stationed at the airbase in Fetesti, in the south, whose infrastructure has
been modernised to this end. Three years ago, Romania decided to buy twelve
such planes from Portugal, its final objective being to purchase 36 F-16s.
These have undergone a modernisation process known as mid-life upgrade and will
be able to interact just like any other multirole aircraft used by NATO member
states. Nine pilots and 80 technicians from Romania received training for two
years from the Portuguese experts to handle the planes. The F-16 squadron will
be created in two stages: three planes will be delivered by the end of the year
and another three in 2017.

Romania has
decided ever since 2008 to modernise its air fleet to replace the MiG 21 Lancer
aircraft, whose service life has begun to expire in 2013. The defence ministry
says it is working on procedures for the purchase of a further twelve F-16
planes.