PM Bolojan: Romania has upcoming defence budgets with a military technique acquisition component

Romania also has defence budgets scheduled for the coming years that provide for a component of military technique acquisitions, such as tanks, drones and air defence systems, but also other categories of weapons needed by the Army, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said on Thursday evening."Without going into technical details, about what type of weapons would be purchased or not, I can tell you the following: Romania also has defence budgets scheduled for the coming years that provide for a component of military technique procurement. Based on these estimations, the Defence Ministry proposed a procurement package in order to ensure the absolutely essential defence, especially on the Eastern Flank - , it is our country's obligation, which stems both from the citizens and our NATO membership. And I think that this tank component is also proposed in this package, but we also have the components for drones, air-defence and everything related to the necessities which the Romanian Army identified as necessary so that it can defend the national territory," PM Bolojan said at B1 TV private television station.According to him, the credit provided by the European Commission eases our country's burden regarding the endowment necessary to defence."From my point of view, what we have done during this time, by contracting this credit which the European Commission is putting at our disposal, a credit with interest rates five times lower than the ones on the market, with a 10-year grace period and repayment in 40 years, basically allows us to ease the trade deficit, because, otherwise, we would have to pay interests at market prices in order to cover this defence obligation, which means the security of our country," Prime Minister Bolojan mentioned.Responding to another question, he underscored that he never stated that he would resign from office, but that he said "common sense things.""I am trying to treat this responsibility which I have as serious as possible. I never made the statement that I would resign. I said things which I believe to be common sense. When there are important projects, when there are things which the Government takes responsibility for, on the one hand, you need support, because otherwise you can move things forward, you need institutional support for it, because, if you hold a position and don't do what you know needs to be done, rather than staying in that position, if you don't have those conditions, it's better to step down. But that doesn't means that you resign tomorrow, but, that you simply respect those you serve," the Government head also said.