Interim President Ilie Bolojan on Monday said that the level and pace of military spending increases will be determined through technical discussions between NATO officials in preparation for the summit that will take place in The Hague.

„I believe that in the near future, these aspects related to the increase and the pace at which the defence budget will grow will be clarified through the technical discussions that will take place between NATO officials in preparation for the summit (in The Hague). I don’t think we will have a sudden increase in military spending. I believe we will grow in a phased approach. If today we have 2.2%, we might reach 2.7%, 3%, 3.5%, I don’t know, but I believe in a phased increase, not from one year to another, but over two or three years, so that through the strategy that will be established, on the one hand, we continue to make acquisitions to strengthen our armed forces and, on the other hand, we make integrated acquisitions at NATO and European levels, so that we participate in military protection assets that cannot be managed by a single country, such as Romania, for example,” said Bolojan on Antena 3.

He added that it is important in the near future to work so that this increase in the defence budget also has a partial impact on the Romanian economy.

He showed that apart from purchasing material from other countries, „we will also have to integrate our defence industry into the value chains of NATO or European military industries, so that components, or effectively almost the entire structure of a military equipment, is produced here, or Romanian companies are part of these chains. After the technical discussions that have taken place, we will have meetings with our defence industry to assess their capacity to enter such partnerships, considering that some of the European funds, which are made available to be taken in the form of very favourable loans by countries, will be accessed in the same way as you would submit an application for European funding. There will be certain conditions,” said Bolojan.

Ilie Bolojan participated in the European Council meeting in Brussels on March 20, which also tackled aspects related to European defence.

AGERPRES