Naval Group reportedly given contract for military corvettes in Romania

Romtehnica, the company that organized the tender to buy four multirole corvettes for the Navy, on July 2 notified the association between the French Naval Group and Constanţa Naval Shipyard that it has won the tender, according to a document consulted by G4Media.ro. The decision came as a surprise, and it formally follows the withdrawal of the appeal filed by Italian company Fincantieri.

“We hereby inform you that after finalizing the evaluation process of the final offers submitted in the specific procedure [...], your offer has been declared winner. [...] Since the procurement is financed from public funds, we inform you that the contracting authority intends to make public the total price of the winning bid,” the cited document states.

Naval Group (France), Damen (Netherlands) and Fincantieri (Italy) competed in the tender organized by the Romanian state for the contract, initially expected to cost EUR 1.6 billion. According to information circulated by media and partly confirmed by defence minister Gabriel Leş, the Naval Group submitted a bid of EUR 1.2 billion, the other deals being higher: EUR 1.25 billion (Damen) and EUR 1.34 billion ( Fincantieri).

On 8 June, defense minister Leş dismissed Andrei Ignat, state secretary in charge with the procurement, after an analysis showed “the need to relaunch and boost” the management. According to sources from the ministry quoted by Digi24.ro, Andrei Ignat was close to the former Social Democrat president Liviu Dragnea, and was involved in blocking the tender for corvettes.