Orban at Defense Ministry's stocktaking meeting: DefMin has very strong voice in Gov't

The Defense Minister is a very strong voice in the government, acting Prime Minister Ludovic Orban told the meeting for the review of the National Defense Ministry's activity this Tuesday; the Premier mentioned the substantial budget allocation for Defense as an argument for his statement.

"The Defense Minister has a very strong voice in the government and he is being listened to; despite the rather unfavorable budgetary situation, the government supports the activity of the Army. When we planned the expenses, the first planned item, in keeping with the political agreement forged at the initiative of the President of Romania, were the Defense expenses and the government is extremely receptive to supporting all the programs of the Romanian Army," said Orban.

He spoke about the Army endowment contracts and plans to develop the national industry. "We equally focus attention on the use of various endowment contracts for ensuring economic development and on the use of endowment resources to restore certain production capacities of the Romanian defense industry," the head of the Executive pointed out.

Orban stressed that "it is extremely important for the Romanian Army to be well equipped, well prepared, well integrated with the NATO structures and the structure established under the Strategic Partnership with the US."