BNS' Costin demands that Romania's President probe endowment of national defence system

I request that the President of Romania convene the Supreme Council of Country's Defense to make the decision to initiate an investigation into how the multiannual programs on the endowment of the national defense system took into account the directions of action and the main ways to ensure national security, Dumitru Costin, chairman of the National Trade Union Bloc (BNS), said in specialist conference on Wednesday. 

"Taking into account the current situation of the defense industry, I also call on the Romanian Parliament to set up a commission to investigate the application of the legislation on offset operations related to procurement for defense, public order and national security needs since 2003 up to now," Costin said. 

Regarding the intention of the Ministry of National Defense to take over what remains of the defense industry of the country, the NBS representatives consider this to be inappropriate. According to Dumitru Costin, at the end of 2017 the turnover of the state-owned companies in Romania was only 500 million dollars and only 4pct were clients of the Ministry of National Defense. The remainder of the armaments produced in Romania had foreign recipients, with exports not reaching "crepuscular" areas. 

"The lack of interest in the application of existing mechanisms associated with the purchase of military technique is in contradiction with the statements of the Ministry of Defense on the one hand, but also with the initiative of taking over the defense industry sector from the Ministry of Economy's portfolio to that of the Ministry of Defense," Costin said. 

At present, the Romanian defense industry still employs less than 6,000 employees with average salaries lower than the national average. Concerns also exist as regards the average age of these specialists, which is 50 years. 

"Today we are talking about the transfer of what remains of Romania's defense industry from the Ministry of Economy to the Defense Ministry. At the moment, there are 23 companies belonging to the defense industry in the portfolio of the Ministry of Economy. Although in all the programmatic documents Romania recognizes this industry as a strategic sector, over time the interest shown for developing and increasing the competitiveness of this sector has been extremely low, "the NBS leader said. 

According to him, in early 1990 Romania was considered the fifth country in the world producing military equipment.