Reindustrialising the defense sector is one of the most concrete forms of national security Romania can build without depending on anyone's goodwill, Senator Nicoleta Pauliuc, Chair of the Senate's Defense Committee, said on Tuesday.

'Romania has signed the €16.68 billion SAFE agreement, the second-largest in the EU after Poland. It's an amount we've never before seen allocated to defense. The uncomfortable question is: in ten years, what will remain in Romania from this money? Production lines, industrial licences, engineers, factories? The answer depends on whether we talk about industrialisation or just spending,' Pauliuc said at the roundtable titled 'Romania's reindustrialization through the development of the defense industry' - organized by Financial Intelligence, with the support of the Senate Committee on Energy, Energy Infrastructure and Mineral Resources and the Defense Industry Employers' Organization.

Pauliuc stressed the need for predictability, noting that a weapons factory is not built in an electoral cycle, but in 10 - 15 years. 'Predictability is guaranteed by law, not by a minister's promise,' she noted.

The senator argued that simply importing equipment does not develop the economy or local industrial capacity. 'SAFE is a huge opportunity - the biggest our defense industry has had in 30 years - but its real value does not reside in how much we spend, but in how much we build. If we take €16 billion and spend it entirely on ready-made equipment from abroad, we modernise the army, which is good, but we reindustrialise nothing.'

She added that 'reindustrialisation is not measured in equipment brought in or capacities kept alive. (...) A domestic defense industry is not an economic whim or national pride - it's about sovereignty. In a real crisis, when supply chains break, every country keeps for itself what it produces. One question matters: can you support your own army with your own capacities, or do you wait in line behind others?,' she went on to say.

Romania has exceeded the 2% of GDP defence-spending threshold, Pauliuc said, but 'a country does not become secure just by ticking a percentage. It becomes secure if it can produce what it needs. Defense reindustrialisation is the most concrete form of national security we can build - one that does not depend on anyone's goodwill.'

Senator Istvan-Lorant Antal, Chair of the Senate Energy Committee, said Romania has well-developed critical energy infrastructure and the capabilities to defend it as a NATO member, but he warned that the slow pace of reindustrialisation is reflected in declining industrial energy consumption.

'If industrial energy consumption falls, that decline may be mirrored in the economy's figures. A functional economy means industrial consumers,' Istvan-Lorant Antal said.

He emphasized the need to maintain baseload energy production and support high value-added industries. 'Renewables alone cannot sustain industry. Romania must keep its baseload generation, develop gas-production capacity and provide clear government support for industrial sectors. Otherwise, we will face economic and energy problems.'

Antal added that the Neptun Deep gas project could make Romania the region's largest natural-gas producer from 2027, but the challenge is ensuring 'that those gas molecules stay in Romania.'

Senator Radu Oprea said reindustrialisation 'should not mean nostalgia', but must focus on modern technologies and innovation.

He pointed to delays in reopening the Victoria gunpowder plant: 'We secured financing and made some progress, but since then nothing. We all need this production capacity so we are not left begging neighbours for supplies or unable to deliver what we promised to our own defense institutions.'

Oprea also criticised the offset law for failing to deliver technology transfer: 'The offset law and protective legislation made us complacent. We stopped innovating. Innovation should be the main engine for any defense-industry company. In the private sector, things still happen; in state-owned companies - nothing. We cannot progress without innovation,' the Social Democrat senator concluded. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Alina Novaceanu; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)