Lulea (AUR): Romanian economy does not have capacity to raise spending on military equipment to 5% of GDP

Romania does not have the capacity to raise spending on equipping the army to 5% of GDP, there will be "probably loans that will add to the immense debt that the Romanian state has", declared, on Wednesday, the first vice-president of AUR, Marius Lulea.

"I saw the president-designate talking about the fact that up to almost 5% of GDP will be allocated for the military's equipment. He is probably very bad at math, because 5% of GDP means 16-17 billion euros. I hardly think that Romania's defense industry can exceed one billion euros. Which means that this money will not go to the equipment from domestic production, it will probably be loans that will add to the huge debt that the Romanian state has and we will buy leftover military technology from France, from Germany, instead of developing our own industry," Lulea said at a press conference organized by AUR at the Palace of Parliament.

In his opinion, in this context, Romania needs an integrated security plan, which does not strictly refer to Romanian soldiers, but also to its own defense industry.

"Today, the Romanian economy does not have the capacity to raise spending on equipment to 5% of GDP. We cannot even raise it to 3% of GDP. That is precisely why we need an integrated security plan, which does not refer strictly to Romanian soldiers, but also to our own defense industry, because in case of conflict, 20, 30, 40 planes will not help us at all. And we see the situation in Ukraine, where they are asking international partners to send them ammunition so that the soldiers can hold the front line," Lulea said.