Miruță: SAFE, chance for the defense industry and the modernization of the Army

The Minister of Defense, Radu Miruță, states, in an interview granted to Explicativ, that Romania's security is built simultaneously through the European Union, NATO, and the strategic partnership with the United States, rejecting the logic of "sacrifice territories" and relying on the use of the SAFE program for the modernization of the Army and the relaunch of the national defense industry.

Strategic positioning and defense doctrine

Miruță avoids advancing a scenario regarding Romania's resistance in a potential conflict with Russia, emphasizing that there are plans for multiple operational hypotheses. He insists that the EU, NATO, and the USA are "three complementary prisms," not strategic alternatives, and points out that NATO would be "much weaker without the United States," in the context of European discussions about strategic autonomy. Regarding the "Focșani Gate" doctrine, the minister rejects the idea that Moldova would be a sacrifice zone and shows that the defense plans for the eastern part of the country are "more intense," updated based on lessons from the war in Ukraine, especially regarding the use of drones.

SAFE, drones, and the defense industry

Regarding the SAFE program, Miruță describes it as a mechanism for the reindustrialization of the Romanian defense industry, not just as a financial loan scheme. He points out that Romania has included 21 equipping projects in the application, worth over 9.5 billion euros, with the aim of linking acquisitions to actual production in the country and the transfer of technology to Romanian factories. The minister emphasizes the need for the development of critical software "in house" within the Army, for the integration of data from radars, F-16s, ships, and tanks, and for the rapid operation of drone systems, while the hardware remains the responsibility of state and private companies in the defense industry.