Phantom Corvette: a new contract awarded directly, after the monumental failure of the 2019 tender

The Romanian Naval Forces will be equipped with a new light corvette-type ship, capable of executing, in the shortest possible time, a multitude of missions, decided the members of the Supreme Council for National Defense, according to the press release issued by the Presidential Administration following the meeting that took place last Friday, at the convocation of the interim president Ilie Bolojan. The Ministry of National Defense was tasked with initiating the steps for the urgent realization of the acquisition.

According to the press release, "the endowment with such a ship will have a significant impact on the existing fleet, being part of the modernization and endowment programs that are in different phases of development."

The Presidential Administration's press release states that in this case, given the urgency of the acquisition, we will probably be dealing with a direct award of the contract for the corvette in question and it remains to be seen who will be the shipbuilder that will receive the contract.

Not surprisingly, the failure of the tender for the four marine corvettes intended for the Romanian Naval Forces is recent and also started from the idea of a direct award. More precisely, in 2016, the Cioloş government decided that the contract would be awarded directly to the Damen Galaţi shipyard, but in 2017 the PSD president, Liviu Dragnea, who was also the president of the Chamber of Deputies, asked his colleagues in Parliament to reject the request sent a year ago by the Cioloş government and, instead of a direct award, to request the new Executive to follow the public procurement procedure, with several bidders. The procedure was approved by the Dăncilă government in March 2018 and was only finalized at the end of June 2019, when the former Minister of National Defense, Beniamin Leş, announced that the four corvettes would be built by the Franco-Romanian association Naval Group-Şantierul Naval Constanţa. From that moment until the spring of last year, there were many meetings in which the Romanian side tried to convince the French side to sign the contract, but Naval Group went back on the initial offer and said that they could no longer complete the contract for the same amount, but for a higher one, which led to the termination of the entire public procurement procedure.

All these aspects have been reported, from 2019 until now, in the pages of the BURSA newspaper.

Read HOTĂRÂRI DE GUVERN CU DEDICAŢIE Corvetele marine, o afacere franco-română

Read Negociere interminabilă a contractului pentru corvetele destinate Forţelor Navale

Read Achiziţia corvetelor - anulată după patru ani, niciun vinovat tras la răspundere

Read Ciolacu îngroapă corvetele lui Dăncilă: Forţele Navale rămân fără vasele de luptă

Sources within the Government told us, immediately after the CSAT meeting, that now it would be about the direct acquisition of a ship that is already built and that in this case it would be about a shipyard in Turkey.

Anyway, with and without the corvette in question, according to the Presidential Administration "The Romanian Army will continue to focus its strategic efforts on strengthening the defense capacity at national and allied levels, in order to deter and effectively combat all types of classical, asymmetric, hybrid or other threats".

During Friday's meeting, according to the cited source, the members of the CSAT also discussed the measures that we will continue at the national level for the efficient management of the effects of the situation in our immediate vicinity, as well as the actions aimed at consolidating the contribution to collective defense within NATO and to strengthening the European dimension of security and defense. Therefore, the CSAT is considering "a phased increase in the percentage of GDP allocated to defense spending, without creating budgetary imbalances, using European instruments for this purpose", according to the press release issued by the Presidential Administration.

At the same time, the CSAT analyzed and approved the reports on the activity carried out by the institutions with responsibilities in the field of national security in 2024 and the main objectives for 2025, as well as the reports on the budget execution of operational expenditures intended for achieving national security by these institutions. The members of the Council also evaluated the Report of the Supreme Council of National Defense on the activity in 2024, a report that will be sent for approval to the Romanian Parliament.