Romania plans to purchase two patrol vessels for its own needs.

Monitorul Apararii reported on this.

The procurement budget is estimated at €300 million, or almost 1.5 billion Romanian lei.

Yesterday, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence hosted an informal meeting between the Minister and Romanian journalists to discuss the outcome of the NATO summit in Washington and current and future programs.

Among them was the intention to purchase two patrol vessels worth €300 million. The kind of project to be ordered and the contract terms were not reported.

It is worth mentioning that last year, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence canceled the contract under which the French company Naval Group was to build four Gowind 2500 corvettes for the Romanian Navy. The contract was canceled because the tender winner did not sign the framework agreement within the customer’s time frame.

The tender itself was announced in March 2018. The government allocated about €1.6 billion for its implementation. In 2019, it was announced that the French company Naval Group won the tender, offering four Gowind 2500 corvettes worth €1.2 billion.

In the same year, the contract was suspended, as the Romanian contractor of Naval Group, Santierul Naval Constanta, filed a lawsuit to cancel the procurement procedure.

The main condition of the contract was that the vessels had to be built in Romania and owned by a company registered in the EU or NATO countries. Among the available manufacturers that meet these conditions, Damen is worth mentioning.

In the fall of 2022, Damen Shipyards launched the construction in Romania of two OPV 2600 patrol vessels for Pakistan.

Prior to that, in February and November 2020, Damen delivered two OPV 2300 patrol vessels to the Pakistani Navy.

Romania has its own production capabilities to implement the plans. However, it is unknown when the implementation is planned and other details, as there have been examples of construction in other countries, such as the FCS 4008 Patrol.