Mangalia 2.0: The State is playing bluff with the Romanian naval industry again

The Romanian state is preparing to repeat, with astonishing obstinately and a cruel lack of vision, the dubious scheme from 2018 through which it declared itself the majority shareholder in the Mangalia Shipyard without investing a single leu, but took over absolute decision-making control, although on paper it left a free hand to the operational management appointed by the Dutch company Damen. The result of that scheme was predictable: industrial collapse, insolvency, unemployment and chaos. Now, the same recipe is being reheated, only that the Dutch from Damen are replaced by the Turks from Desan, and the background of the transaction is covered by the noise of military corvettes imported under emergency regime.

The newspaper BURSA publicly warned about this dangerous maneuver, and recent events prove it completely right. Two weeks ago, we drew attention to the fact that, according to government sources, the purchase of a Turkish Hisar OPV corvette by the Ministry of National Defense is not a simple military transaction, but rather the beginning of a well-orchestrated scenario, in which purchases from Turkey become the gateway for a foreign company to a strategic Romanian shipyard. The haste with which everything is being carried out, the lack of a public debate, the artificially inflated real price and the hilarious justifications invoked - such as a sudden threat from a Russian submarine off the Neptun Deep - are nothing more than smokescreens intended to cover the controlled and discreet transfer of the Mangalia Shipyard to the Turkish company Desan.

The scheme now proposed by the Ministry of Economy, Digitalization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism is almost identical to the one in 2018: the Romanian state remains the majority shareholder, without investing a single leu, but the foreign partner is pushed to pay all historical debts and take over the obligations of the former minority shareholder. Just as Damen was "convinced" to pay for the exit of the Mangalia Shipyard by the Korean company Daewoo and to accept operational management only on paper, the Turks will now be dragged into the same scenario with different costumes, but the same piece.

Hypocritically, the authorities present this arrangement as a "relaunch" of the shipyard. In reality, the Turks will rent the facilities and the workforce, but with no guarantee that they will invest, that they will build military ships to NATO standards or that they will maintain the industrial activity in the long term. Everything is based on a backstage agreement, with closed doors and promises without coverage. In the meantime, over 200 employees have been laid off, and another thousand are on extended technical unemployment. An industry is dying, but the Government is selling us the illusion of strategic partnerships.

Returning to Mangalia, the situation is disastrous: Damen notified the termination of the agreement with the Romanian state, and the shipyard officially entered insolvency in the summer of 2024. Debts exceed 800 million lei. There is no clear recovery plan. There is no long-term vision. There is only a complicit silence between shareholders, snoring statements about "advanced negotiations" with a strategic investor and an apparent acceptance of the disaster. In reality, there is no negotiation. It is a silent surrender, on debt, under the conditions dictated by the Romanian state: no investments, no transparency, but with total political control.

The Romanian state is actually selling Mangalia for nothing. Not because it has no options, but because it refuses to assume investment responsibility. It has abandoned the idea of an autonomous naval industry. It has chosen to play the role of a poor but authoritarian administrator, who does not produce, does not build, but controls everything through paper, meetings and sterile protocols.

And when the press warns about this farce, it is treated with silence or discredited. But the reality is clear: BURSA was right. The Turkish corvettes are just a mask. The real scenario is the transfer of Mangalia, under a camouflaged formula of "operational partnership". The state will remain the "majority shareholder", but without managing anything relevant. And the Turkish investors will pay for all the broken pots, while the government will pose as the savior of the industry.

The truth is that Romania is not building a fleet. They are burying their shipyards. They are not strengthening their defense. They are undermining their industrial economy. They are not attracting investors. They are selling their future on debt. And all this with a serenity that borders on complicity.