The government adopted, in Monday’s meeting, the draft law on the donation of a Patriot surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine, and the legislative proposal of the Executive is to be sent to the Parliament, for adoption as an emergency, announced the spokesperson of the institution , Mihai Constantin.
In June, the Supreme National Defense Council decided that our country should send the Patriot anti-aircraft defense system to Ukraine, but Romania asked its ally, especially the United States, to deliver a “similar or equivalent system”.
“The executive has approved and will send to Parliament, as an emergency, a draft law that completes Law 222/2017 on ground-based air defense capability. Specifically, the project provides that a Patriot surface-to-air missile system is the subject of acts of donation to third parties. After the adoption of the law by the Parliament, the Government will be able to issue the decision that will make the act of donation operational. The entire Executive is empowered to reconstitute the country’s ground-air defense capability from the budget allocated to the Ministry of National Defense”, announced Mihai Constantin, at the end of Monday’s meeting at the Victoria Palace.
The Ministry of National Defense mentioned that it will supply one of the seven Patriot systems in the 3+ configuration bought from the USA. Four of them have already arrived in Romania – two are operational. The other three will arrive in Romania in the next period. The donation will be made by amending Law 222 of 2017, through which Romania bought seven Patriot systems from the United States, for the amount of almost 4 billion dollars.
At the end of August, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba asked the allies not to delay and provide Ukraine with the promised Patriot air defense systems, Kyiv Independent reports.
The call comes in the context in which Romania, the Netherlands and the US announced in June that they would donate Patriot systems to Kyiv, but have not yet delivered them. “We are paying for all these delays with damages and loss of life,” Kuleba said.