Radu Miruţă warns: May 31, deadline for signing contracts financed by SAFE

Of the 21 endowment programs officially announced by the Government, which will be financed by SAFE, with a total value of 9.53 billion euros, only one contract has been signed so far - the joint acquisition of Mistral 3 portable anti-aircraft systems, stated yesterday, at the Palace of Parliament, Radu Miruţă, Minister of National Defense. The official specified that the rest of the projects are in a race against time, with a deadline that leaves no room for administrative postponements or compromises: the end of May, and the stakes are simple and brutal: either Romania signs the individual contracts on time, or loses the SAFE funds, a scenario that Minister Radu Miruţă qualifies as unacceptable.

Radu Miruţă stated: "The Mistral systems have already been signed. We are waiting for the localization criteria from the Ministry of Economy (ed. - for the other programs). The Ministry of Defense has prepared absolutely everything in terms of technical documentation for each product. After the Ministry of Economy regulates the localization percentage, the Government working group will establish the eligibility criteria for the respective companies. If the individual acquisition programs from SAFE are not signed by May 31, the money will be lost, which I do not accept.”

The statement of the Minister of National Defense represents a clear delimitation from any possible backstage game, especially since huge sums revolve around SAFE, and the experience of previous years shows that large endowment programs invariably attract aggressive lobbying, economic interests and political pressure.

That is why Radu Miruţă wanted to clarify everything yesterday: "Regarding the SAFE program, my answer is the same: zero combinations. Those who ask about SAFE are not very interested in how the Romanian Army is being equipped, but in how they can also get their hands on some money that revolves around the Romanian equipment."

The Defense Minister's statement basically shows that there were attempts at political influence, but he claims that these were rejected without hesitation.

"Do you think I am verbalizing these things in the public space other than with the aim of defending myself through you, conveying to them that they came for nothing? The obvious answer is yes, but obviously they left as they came," Radu Miruţă also said.

Essentially, the minister's message is that SAFE will not become a field for political negotiation or informal arrangements. At a time when the credibility of defense programs is closely monitored by NATO partners and European institutions, any suspicion of political interference or favoritism could compromise not only current projects, but also future funding lines.

Beyond the political tensions, the Minister of Defense emphasized the strategic and inevitable nature of Romania's participation in SAFE. According to him, there was no real option to refuse the European mechanism, given that the endowment plan was proposed by the Army, endorsed by the CSAT and voted in Parliament.

"The goal is to sign the 21 contracts this year, which are the most advantageous possible way of endowment today. I tell those who sing along to Russian music, to various political groups in Romania, that our country did not have the option not to invest in SAFE. It is an endowment plan proposed by the Army, passed by the CSAT and voted in Parliament. We could not say that we did not want to make this piece of endowment. It was not a yes or no option, but whether from the national budget, by borrowing heavily, we will endow ourselves or for the endowment to be financed through the SAFE mechanism, at a cost twice as cheap. We chose to move as much as possible to SAFE, because it is much cheaper", mentioned Radu Miruţă.

This positioning touches on a sensitive point in the public debate: the cost of modernizing the Army. SAFE offers financing under considerably more advantageous conditions, reducing the pressure on the budget deficit and public debt. In the absence of the European mechanism, Romania would have had to take out more expensive loans, in an already tense economic context.

The only program for which a financing contract has been signed so far, Mistral 3, provides for the acquisition of 231 MANPAD systems and 934 missiles, in a joint contract with France and other European states, with a value of 626 million euros. It is an essential component for the consolidation of very short-range air defense, in an increasingly volatile regional security environment.

The rest of the SAFE list outlines a massive modernization effort: Piranha 5 armored personnel carriers, logistics platforms, SHORAD and V-SHORAD systems, C-RAM and AHEAD munitions, tracked infantry fighting vehicles, H225M helicopters, radars, drones, OPV ships, NSM naval systems, NATO standard individual weapons and C4ISR software infrastructure. Each of these programs has industrial, operational implications and strategic, and their delay would directly affect the pace of transformation of the Romanian Army.