According to information published by Fanatik on May 15, 2024, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has renewed discussions on acquiring corvettes for the Romanian Navy, with decisions anticipated soon. He also mentioned the Corvette European patrol program.
The Romanian Navy’s acquisition program for new corvettes has been a complex and prolonged process. Initially, Romania planned to purchase four Gowind 2500 corvettes from the French shipbuilder Naval Group in partnership with the Romanian Santierul Naval Constanta (SNC) shipyard. This deal, valued at €1.2 billion, also included modernizing the Romanian Navy’s T22 frigates and establishing a maintenance and training center.
However, in 2023, Romania cancelled this procurement due to financial and legal challenges, including issues with securing funds and fulfilling domestic legislative requirements. Despite these efforts, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence (MoND) was unable to finalize the contract with Naval Group, nor proceed with alternative bids from other European shipbuilders like Damen and Fincantieri.
In parallel with these challenges, Romania has joined the European Patrol Corvette (EPC) program under the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative. This pan-European project aims to develop a new class of multipurpose corvettes. The EPC design emphasizes flexibility and modularity, enabling the integration of various systems and payloads tailored to specific mission profiles, such as anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW), and air defense.