A top general's warning: Romania is wasting the SAFE rearmament program and risks falling into Russia's sphere of influence
Romania is about to miss another major objective, according to the PNRR. General (r) Virgil Bălăceanu warns that we are about to waste the SAFE rearmament program as well. This is because there is a tendency to neglect Romania's dying defense industry and to rely on imports.
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Romania seems determined to kick a new chance, after wasting a good part of the PNRR and not knowing how to really take advantage of the European funds. This time it is about the SAFE rearmament program.
General (r) Virgil Bălăceanu warns, in an analysis for “Adevărul”, that Romania seems not to have understood that the SAFE rearmament program means a new chance for an industry abandoned for years, the defense industry. Although this industry could be revitalized with European funds, and Romania could become an arms producer again, the authorities continue to hesitate. And as if that were not enough, the new political crisis calls into question the little that still seemed to be done. Without military industry, without military technology and without defense reform, Romania can only be in danger, warns the general.
“Including the political instability creates major vulnerabilities from the defense point of view, because I don't know if the issue of the SAFE programs, extremely, extremely, extremely — I said it intentionally three times — important for the restart of the Romanian defense industry, will be a priority. If there will only be procurement programs from the foreign market, we will get nowhere”.
warns the general.
We do not rely on offset
The problem is that Romania does not put enough emphasis on what offset means, and this makes the SAFE program more of a program of new imports for us. The offset in the defense industry (Compensatory Operations) aims to increase the national economy and develop the local industry, and the foreign partners selected for these projects undertake either to transfer technology or to produce certain components directly in Romania or even both. Finally, there is another component, the so-called indirect offset, when the external partner invests in other economic sectors unrelated to the contract. In Romania, unfortunately, it is a component that is too little present, in contrast to countries like Poland, which conditioned the granting of contracts on this offset.
“I mention the SAFE, respectively the programs in the SAFE: the 21 programs do not have an offset component. So, if you do not develop your own programs in Romania or do not win, with a fairly visible position as a subcontractor, a contract that is multinational from outside, then we will do nothing but purchase military equipment and ammunition, without being reflected in the restart of the defense industry. Because we don't have a defense industry yet, unfortunately. The defense industry does not respond to the requirements of the war as it is being conducted in Ukraine, as it is being conducted in Israel, as it is being conducted in the Middle East, and we do not have a defense industry that is responding to the requirements of NATO or the requirements of the European Union. We will remain, if against the background of governmental instability the SAFE programs end up – and they have already – on the secondary plan, to simply make purchases”, esaid the general.
A failure now means wasted years and wasted funds. At the same time, the money will have to be returned, even if the loans that come through SAFE have low rates in general.
“Let's not forget that the SAFE programs mean a financial exercise based on a loan in very good conditions until 2030. So we will have to wait for new rounds of SAFE programs, hoping that they will continue, in order to do something for our national industry. It is a short-term danger that makes Romania vulnerable“, points out general Bălăceanu.
The political crisis endangers us
At the same time, another vulnerability of Romania is due to the fact that this political crisis can give the radical parties an advantage and bring an authoritarian and anti-European regime in the future. At the same time, Romania, a country that does not excel in diplomacy anyway and fails to become visible at the level of NATO and the EU, risks losing even more of its significance. The B9 summit in May and the NATO summit in Ankara in the summer could find us in an unenviable position, states General Virgil Bălăceanu.
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“Political instability, returning in the short term and to the issues of defense and security, will be reflected in the way we organize and in the results of the B9 summit on May 13. It is a historic summit, because the Nordic countries will be added to the nine states on the eastern border of NATO and the European Union. And I don't think that things can be treated seriously when we don't have a stable government, we don't have political stability in Romania and no well-grounded decisions are made, in the conditions On the other hand, we will witness a political crisis in the next 45 days, as the NATO summit in July will certainly address the transatlantic relationship… With whom will Marco Rubio visit? With a foreign minister whose future is uncertain?”asks General Bălăceanu.
The most serious problem is that Romania will end up with an authoritarian and anti-European regime, which will not rely too much on NATO, believes General Virgil Bălăceanu.
“And from here, the paradigm of Romania's defense and security will fundamentally change, which will go more along the lines of: “we make a pact with the Russian Federation, we are friendly with the Russian Federation, so as to remove the danger of aggression”. Remembering that in modern history – we take this into account – and in contemporary history, not to mention the history of the Middle Ages, no pact and no friendly attitude towards the Tsarist Empire or towards the USSR were considered assets. The idea of expansion is always the foundation of the existence of the Russian Federation. The entire history of the Russian Federation, from the prince of Novgorod, who succeeded the prince of Kiev, means continuous expansion. Or now, Putin wants to achieve a recovery, even partial, of the lost territories that were brought to the Tsarist Empire by Catherine II. She wants to remain a kind of Catherine II in the history of the Russian Federation. But his plan is not only related to actual territorial conquests, but also to the expansion of the sphere of influence”he says.
Romania risks deviating from the European path
In his opinion, Romania risks entering Russia's sphere of influence from now on. Following the cause-effect relationship, the failure of the governing coalition will induce change at the top level, and Romania's new leadership will most likely abdicate the current policy and prefer a rapprochement with Moscow.
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“Certainly, if we are talking about a change of political regime, then even more so we will not have projects to strengthen the defense posture and deterrence in the Black Sea. Because these projects disadvantage the Russian Federation, and these authoritarian regimes, but friendly to the Russian Federation, will advocate that Moscow's military interests become interests that, definitively, lead to control from the point of view of the Black Sea or to an understanding between the Russian Federation and Turkey regarding this control, the other riparian states self-excluding themselves. Things will get complicated from this point of view, especially since we have the most backward category of forces, precisely the category of forces intended for the defense and deterrence position in the most politically unstable area of the Black Sea, not to take into account the energy resources that we do not know how we will defend in the conditions of a hybrid war of the Russian Federation“, explains General Virgil Bălăceanu.
Thus, Romania risks in the future that for a period of two or even three decades it will “go astray” and enter Russia's sphere of influence.
“It can't be worse than that, because it pushes Romania in the next, let's say, 20-25 years, obviously in the Eurasian sphere. It will be in an area where Romania was for a good period of time. It will be separated from the Euro-Atlantic area and will move towards the Eurasian one. For Bulgarians and Serbs it is not really such a problem, but for us it is a huge one. The Russians and the Serbs and Bulgarians, taking into account their roots, they will have no problems finding themselves in a Slavic world. But for Romania, even with its roots of Western civilization, starting from the Roman Empire onwards, beyond the steps of history from the new period and the Middle Ages, it seems disastrous to me to reach the Eurasian economic, political and cultural space”general Virgil Bălăceanu concludes his warning.
