A member of the
\nNorth-Atlantic Alliance since 2004, Romania has taken a series of decisions to
\nconsolidate its membership. One such decision was made public during a meeting
\nof the country’s Supreme Defence Council on Tuesday and refers to the
\ntransformation of the Rovine 2nd Infantry Brigade in Craiova,
\nsouthern Romania, into a NATO multinational brigade. The move forms part of a
\nseries of measures established at this year’s NATO summit in Warsaw. <\/p>\n
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Apart from
\nRomania, the multinational brigade also enjoys the participation of Bulgaria
\nand Poland. Other countries may also take part, but this is to be decided
\nduring talks between defence minister Mihnea Motoc and the allied states,
\npresident Klaus Iohannis has explained:<\/p>\n
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We will make
\nthe announcement when we know exactly who will take part and with how many
\ntroops and what this multinational brigade will look like, because this also
\ndepends on how NATO sees this multinational brigade. We believe we will be able
\nto announce the initial capacity of this brigade sometime in 2017, including
\nwho takes part and with how many troops, and then we will begin the
\norganisation stage. In the most optimistic scenario, the brigade will become
\noperational in 2018.<\/p>\n
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The Romanian
\npresident also spoke about the situation of the defence industry, the need to
\nreorganise the Romarm company and for its production to be correlated with the
\nneeds of the Romanian army with respect to equipment. <\/p>\n
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In the meantime,
\nthe first six F-16 planes to be used by the Romanian Air Force will be
\nstationed at the airbase in Fetesti, in the south, whose infrastructure has
\nbeen modernised to this end. Three years ago, Romania decided to buy twelve
\nsuch planes from Portugal, its final objective being to purchase 36 F-16s.
\nThese have undergone a modernisation process known as mid-life upgrade and will
\nbe able to interact just like any other multirole aircraft used by NATO member
\nstates. Nine pilots and 80 technicians from Romania received training for two
\nyears from the Portuguese experts to handle the planes. The F-16 squadron will
\nbe created in two stages: three planes will be delivered by the end of the year
\nand another three in 2017. <\/p>\n
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Romania has
\ndecided ever since 2008 to modernise its air fleet to replace the MiG 21 Lancer
\naircraft, whose service life has begun to expire in 2013. The defence ministry
\nsays it is working on procedures for the purchase of a further twelve F-16
\nplanes. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three years ago, Romania decided to buy from Portugal twelve used F-16 planes produced in America, which are due to arrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":69213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[13794],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-70135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-nato"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n