Romania wants NATO to approve during the July summit in Warsaw the rotational presence in Romania of a multinational brigade and a common fleet in the Black Sea (called for diplomatic reasons ‘enhanced cooperation’) with the participation of Ukrainian and Georgian vessels, Defence Minister Mihnea Motoc said in an interview for HotNews.ro.
The frigates will be modernized in the shipyards in Romania. The first modernized frigate should be ready in 2018 and the second in 2020.
Minister Motoc has also announced the initiation of new programs equipping the army with armoured personnel carriers (the first ones could be acquired in 2016), multipurpose corvettes for the Navy and a new squadron of F16 planes.
Minister Motoc explained in the interview the stakes for Romania at the NATO Summit in July, where Bucharest hopes “a strategy at the allies level for prevention and countering of hybrid threats” will be adopted and NATO’s shift from the current policy of insurance-reinsurance to a strategic adaptation policy on long-term to both the threats and risks from the east and from the south.
According to NATO Secretary General, the Summit in Warsaw comes at a crucial time for the Alliance, “as the tectonic plates of Euro-Atlantic security have shifted both in the East and the South”. “We are already implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War. In Warsaw, we will chart the course for the Alliance’s adaptation to the new security environment, so that NATO remains ready to defend all Allies against any threat from any direction”, Jens Stoltenberg said last year when announcing the 2016 Summit.