PARIS/BUCHAREST (Reuters) – France hopes to land lucrative arms contracts in Romania, having notably deployed a squadron of Leclerc tanks and an anti-aircraft defense system in this country as part of the defensive posture of the eastern flank of the NATO, diplomatic sources said.
The French army assumes command of an Atlantic Alliance Forward Presence Battle Group based in Cincu, in central Romania, to which it provides some 500 of its 800 soldiers, the others coming from the Netherlands and Belgium.
The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, was expected there on Friday with her Romanian and Dutch counterparts, after going to Odessa, Ukraine on Thursday.
Their talks and a later meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis will focus on the war in Ukraine, grain exports and bilateral relations, French officials said.
“We have had a strategic relationship with Romania which has been strong” for 15 years, a diplomatic source in Paris stressed before this visit.
“But the reality is that (…) this partnership is even denser” since President Emmanuel Macron decided to send the Leclerc tank squadron and the deployment of the Mamba anti-aircraft defense system, he said. we added.
“So we want to make that happen with cooperation on industrial issues that are very promising.”
France hopes in particular to reach an agreement on the sale of four Gowind-type corvettes which would improve navigation safety in the Black Sea, the epicenter of the war between Russia and Ukraine. The contract, worth an estimated 1.2 billion euros, has been under discussion since the contract was awarded to Naval Group in 2019.
While Bucharest intends to modernize its navy, the poor relation of its army, and has increased its defense expenditure to 2.5% of its GDP this year, a letter of intent has also been signed with a view to the possible purchase of at least one French Scorpène submarine during Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Romania last June, but the file does not seem to have progressed since that date.
“We want to move all this forward”, we insist from a French source. “We will not only discuss corvettes, there will also be discussions on submarines.”
(Reporting by John Irish in Paris, with Luiza Ilie in Bucharest, written by Tangi Salaün, edited by Kate Entringer)