Romania Chooses Defence Over Savings As It Acquires Two High-Tech Maritime Patrol Vessels

The Romanian Ministry of National Defence has issued a statement justifying its decision to acquire two maritime patrol vessels under the Safe and Flexible Acquisitions for the Naval Forces program, despite a proposal from Damen Shiprepair & Conversion, which included a significantly lower price point.

According to the MApN press release, Damen’s offer did not meet the technical requirements of the SAFE project, including the operational requirements and technical specifications approved by the Navy. The Romanian MoD stated that Damen proposed a ship design project, the MOPV 2600, which is not optimized for combat missions specified in the operational requirements.

The MApN also pointed out that the articles comparing prices between Damen’s offer and SAFE did not take into account the different level of equipment proposed for each offshore patrol vessel model. The Romanian Navy had approved technical specifications for a more advanced system, which was not included in Damen’s proposal.

In addition to the lower price point, Damen’s offer also lacked some critical systems that are included in the configuration defined by the technical procurement specification approved for the SAFE project, such as fire control radar systems, CBRN detection equipment, hull-mounted sonar, combat management systems, close-in weapon systems, and countermeasure systems.

The Romanian MoD stated that Damen’s offer was compared during the decision-making process regarding the acquisition of the Hisar-class light corvette, but ultimately decided against it. The Ministry has since opted to acquire two heavily armed offshore patrol vessels under the SAFE program.

Romania previously launched a corvette procurement programme involving Dutch shipbuilder Damen and France’s Naval Group. However, despite a letter of intent signed three years earlier, the contract never entered into force.

On January 26, 2026, the Romanian government published a list of defence programmes planned under the Safe initiative. The procurement of two maritime patrol ships was allocated a budget of €700 million, while the diver intervention vessels were assigned €57 million.

However, in an updated list published on April 28, 2026, the allocated budget increased significantly. Funding for the patrol ships rose to €836 million, while the diver support vessels were assigned €84 million.

The Romanian Ministry of Defence has stated that the cost will be integrated into the SAFE-funded construction of the four vessels.

Industry sources have confirmed that the model of OPVs that would be purchased and produced by SAFE in Romania is similar to the one produced for Bulgaria. The patrol vessel is based on the 90-meter MMPV 90 (Multipurpose Modular Patrol Vessel) model made by NVL (Naval Vessels Lürssen, part of the Rheinmetall group since March 2026).

While detailed specifications of the Romanian configuration have not been officially disclosed, Minister Miruță indicated that the ships will differ significantly from the Bulgarian variant, incorporating more advanced electronic systems and weaponry.

The Romanian MoD leadership made it clear that Damen’s proposal did not meet the operational requirements and technical criteria established for the programme. The final statement in the Ministry’s press release also indicates that Damen’s offer was considered less suitable when compared to the Turkish Hisar-class OPV, which was ultimately selected as the more appropriate solution for the Romanian Naval Forces’ OPV needs.

It remains unclear why Romania did not pursue additional acquisitions of Hisar-class OPVs, which can be configured with corvette-level armament and are broadly comparable in size to both Damen’s OPV 2600 design and the MMPV 90 platform.

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