Defence Minister’s meeting with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

On Thursday, March 5, Minister of National Defence, Radu Miruță, had a bilateral meeting with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, in Brussels.

The discussions focused on the main security developments at European level, with emphasis on the support provided to Ukraine and the consolidation of relevant European initiatives for the Eastern Flank.

Minister Miruță has highlighted Romania's efforts in support of Ukraine, on multiple dimensions, including training, logistics and humanitarian ones, and has emphasized that maintaining robust and coordinated European support remains essential for strengthening Ukraine's resilience and maintaining regional stability, in the context of the security challenges generated by the Russian Federation's war of aggression.

An important topic of the dialogue was cooperation with Ukraine in developing industrial capabilities. The European Union has launched several support initiatives in this regard, including increased financing through the European Investment Bank, the EU-Ukraine Partnership for Connectivity and Secure Communications. In this context, the two officials exchanged views on the progress made within the capability coalitions created by the Member States to implement the decisions of European leaders on the Defence Readiness 2030 objective.

"The increased demand from Member States and Ukraine for defence equipment can only be quickly balanced by increasing production capacities, involving the assets and infrastructure available at the level of all Member States, by coherently associating technological capacities with the logistic, testing and storage ones existing throughout the EU. What is currently missing is a mapping of these facilities and top-down coordination in associating different cooperation opportunities," the Romanian official emphasized.

Minister of National Defence also emphasized the growing importance of the Black Sea region for European security, which is why this region should hold a central role within the Allied and European Union initiatives on the Eastern Flank. The two officials also discussed the status of rendering Black Sea Security Hub operational, a facility proposed by the EU Strategic Approach for this sea basin, for which Romania has expressed its interest in hosting.

The meeting reconfirmed the shared vision regarding the need to strengthen the European Union’s role in the field of security and defence, in complementarity with NATO, as well as Romania's commitment to remain a decisive contributor to European initiatives aimed at strengthening regional and Euro-Atlantic security.

The Press Office