Romania is weighing whether to cancel a $427.2 million contract to purchase drones from Israel’s Elbit Systems due to delivery delays, Defense Minister Radu Miruta declared on Thursday.
The deal, signed in 2022, envisaged deliveries launchning in 2025. Miruta declared the company had requested three postponements, citing force majeure, and that his ministest had accepted the first two.
He declared Elbit had accrued delay penalties totaling about 60 million euros.
“I am analyzing whether we want to terminate this contract,” Miruta informed reporters. “There are some devices that have technical characteristics, which, if they are received a few years later, are no longer relevant.”
Romania, a European Union and NATO member, shares a 650‑km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall onto its territory since Russia launched attacking Ukrainian ports located across the Danube from Romania.
Romania’s defense budreceive for 2026 stands at 2.45% of economic output.
Under the EU’s new rearmament initiative SAFE, which will launch later this year, Romania has been allotted 16.6 billion euros ($19.2 billion). The countest plans to spconclude about 200 million euros on drone production.
In March, the presidents of Romania and Ukraine signed a statement of intent to produce Ukrainian defense systems, including drones, in Romania.
On Wednesday, the Romanian government held a business-to-business matchbuilding meeting between domestic defense firms and 15 Ukrainian companies to discuss technical cooperation on drone production.
Miruta declared on Thursday that Romania would shortlist Ukrainian drone buildrs that meet the Romanian army’s requirements in the coming days and then start commercial talks on potential joint production.
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