Romania will not send combat fighters to Ukraine, on Wednesday said president Klaus Iohannis, in central Brasov County.

„Romania will not send combat fighters to Ukraine, the discussion is simple and I think this is over,” the president stressed.

Referring to the expenses for equipping the army, the president explained that there are two reasons why things got complicated: „one, because everyone wants to buy weapons nowadays and it is not so easy to make a purchase anymore. Two: the inflation we had spoiled the calculation a little in this area as well.”

Still, the president went on, „to a good extent, this expense has already been corrected, because a lot of money was spent on Defence at the very beginning of this year for matters that were planned to be purchased last year. Unfortunately, we don’t have a multi-year budget, even though something like that has been discussed for decades. Maybe one day we will have, because you can only plan military acquisitions with annual budgets with great difficulty. No one produces sophisticated weaponry from one day to the next and no one has them in stock, they have to be ordered, produced, delivered, paid for, a matter that often takes place over several years,” Klaus Iohannis stressed.

„I think that Romania is doing very well what it is doing in the endowment area, but the public procurement rules often artificially extend the process a lot. And, yes, it is a matter that was also discussed at another level, that maybe it is needed even in the European Union, let’s improve the public procurement rules to accelerate exactly in this area,” the president said.

Klaus Iohannis is visiting the Piatra Craiului National Park, on the occasion of the International Day of Biodiversity and on the sidelines of the European Day of National Parks, which will be celebrated on May 24.

AGERPRES