Romania’s drone production capacities to rapidly increase in coming years, minister says

Romania’s drone production capacity will increase rapidly in the coming years thanks to private companies and public initiatives, said interim economy minister Irineu Darău on Monday, August 17, in an interview with Euronews Romania.

The increase will be noticeable beginning with 2027, the minister said, thanks to the funds made available through the SAFE Act. Local drone production may also benefit from partnerships with Ukrainian companies.

“There are private companies that are starting to innovate a lot in this field and already have foreign partners. I am convinced that all these joint efforts, private and public, will have an effect without a delay,” the official said.

Darău noted that Romania has recently shot down drones that illegally crossed its airspace. While this has been done by military airplanes, the country will soon benefit from a drone-based defense industry.

“We have entered an accelerated phase of innovation, and I am confident that very soon we will have a defense industry also based on drones that will help us. Firmly within the horizon of 2027, our domestic production capacities will increase rapidly,” Irineu Darău said.

Drones have come to dominate the battlefield in Ukraine and have even been used by Iran in its asymmetric conflict with the United States and Israel. Russia and Ukraine have both relied on drones for close- but also long-range strikes on each other.

The number of drone attacks recorded on Ukrainian territory, near the border with Romania, has exceeded 110 since the beginning of the war. In 39 cases, Russian drones were reported to have entered Romanian airspace, including the drone shot down on August 16 in Galați County, according to a Ministry of National Defense statistic consulted by News.ro.

Since the beginning of this year, authorities have recorded 54 instances of attacks near Romania’s border. In 42 of these cases, aircraft from the Air Policing Combat Service were scrambled to monitor and verify the air situation. In approximately 50 cases, drones or drone fragments were identified on Romanian territory.