Romania is “on schedule” with the European SAFE program for defense investments, and on Tuesday the last component necessary for signing the contracts is to be voted on in Parliament, Nicușor Dan declared at the international conference “Black Sea and Balkans Security Forum”.
Present at the international forum “Black Sea and Balkans Security Forum” – dedicated to regional security and cooperation in the Black Sea and Balkans area, the Romanian president stated that the authorities will respect the calendar established at European level, so that Romania has the contracts signed by May 31.
“On SAFE, we are on schedule. As you know, there was a calendar, there was a deadline in November last year, which we met. Now there is the deadline of May 31 this year – so in 3-4 weeks – by which the contracts must be signed”, declared Nicușor Dan.
The final component of the SAFE contracts still needs to be approved by Parliament to complete the procedures required to sign them. “For these contracts to be signed, this vote in Parliament was necessary, which came for an important component two weeks ago and I predict that it will happen today on the last component,” said the president.
According to Nicușor Dan, this is the last component required to complete the SAFE procedures, which also includes projects under the responsibility of the Ministry of Transport, related to dual infrastructure and military mobility.
Nicușor Dan argued that the SAFE program will bring a significant part of the production to Romania, especially in the military component, and investments should not stop with the implementation deadline indicated for 2030.
“The SAFE programs will bring part of the production to Romania, somewhere around 60% of the military contracts that we have signed, so about 13 billion out of the 17, the difference being on the highway sections,” the president said.
“There is a will for economic activity not to end at 2030,” he added.
Also, Romania’s commitments regarding the increase in defense spending will not be affected by political instability or future electoral cycles, Nicușor Dan believes. “There is no doubt about this,” he said, referring to the objectives assumed within NATO.
He specified that when drafting the 2026 budget, Romania’s obligations in the field of defense were treated as a priority. „On the spending side, the part of respecting the obligations we assumed in The Hague came first,” the president declared.
MAI MULT MEDIAFAX
