Mutual interest: military cooperation between Romania and Türkiye is gaining momentum

Vladimir Mitev, Mediapool, 14 July, 2026

Summary

Defense cooperation between Romania and Türkiye has transitioned from diplomatic declarations to concrete strategic action. While Romania is rapidly modernizing its defense capabilities and establishing a domestic production footprint, Türkiye is leveraging partnerships in Romania to try to reduce the obstacles to getting European Union defense funding.

1. Naval and Land Defense Acquisitions

• The Corvette ROS Contraamiral August Roman: Handed over in Istanbul and entering service on July 10, 2026, this is the first Turkish-built warship exported to a joint NATO/EU member state. It features Türkiye’s advanced ADVENT combat system and will be armed with Naval Strike Missiles.
• Otokar’s Transylvanian Hub: Turkish armored vehicle manufacturer Otokar acquired Romania’s Automecanica plant in Mediaș for €85 million. The facility will assemble 1,059 COBRA II armored vehicles, resolving a security concern by replacing the factory’s previous Russian-linked owners.

2. Mitigating EU Funding Restrictions via SAFE

• The Funding Challenge: Greece and Cyprus oppose an agreement broadening the eligibility of Turkish industry under the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe instrument. Romania has been allocated a maximum SAFE loan amount of approximately €16.68 billion.
• The Romanian Gateway: Under SAFE rules, no more than 35 percent of the estimated component cost of the end product may originate outside the EU, EEA-EFTA states and Ukraine. By localizing production in Romania, Turkish defense firms try to reduce the restrictions which they face in SAFE programme

3. New Financial and Regional Coalitions

• The DSRB Bank: In July 2026, Romania and Türkiye joined Canada and others as founding members of the Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB). Designed to mitigate EU-centric restrictions, it aims to mobilize up to $134 billion in private and public capital starting in 2027.
• Black Sea Mine Action Task Force: Alongside Bulgaria, the two nations expanded this trilateral task force in 2026 to secure critical underwater infrastructure against drone strikes, mines, and sabotage.

Geopolitical Nuances and Caution in Bucharest

Despite these successes, foreign policy circles in Bucharest maintain a degree of caution due to:

• Türkiye’s Russia Policy: Ankara’s “managed rivalry” with Moscow–including expanded trade and tolerance of Russia’s “shadow fleet” in the Bosphorus–causes concern in Romania.
• Strategic Overlap: Romania’s ambition to become the premier Black Sea security hub is met with quiet resistance from Ankara, which closely guards its regional influence under the Montreux Convention.
• Allied Tensions: Türkiye’s ongoing disputes with Greece (an EU member) and Israel complicate Romania’s diplomatic balancing act.

Article

Last week, the corvette ROS Contraamiral August Roman passed through the Bosphorus and entered the Black Sea for the first time as a Romanian warship. Outgoing Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruță later recounted how the Turkish naval command greeted the crew over the radio just as the ship was leaving the strait – “Welcome to the Black Sea” – adding that the sea does not divide Romania, Türkiye, and Bulgaria, but rather unites their common economic and military interests. The ship officially entered service at the port of Constanța on 10 July 2026 – more than three decades after Romania last received a new warship. This took place after Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Nicușor Dan marked the handover of the corvette in Istanbul on 20 June 2026. This is the first time a Turkish-built warship has been exported to a country that is a member of both NATO and the EU, reported Daily Sabah.

Three weeks after the ceremony in Istanbul, the defense ministries of the two countries met again in Ankara on the occasion of the 36th NATO summit – an event whose significance went beyond mere declarations. NATO leaders recognized Türkiye’s central role in Euro-Atlantic security by holding the summit in Ankara for only the second time in the Alliance’s history, and used the forum to present the NATO-Industry Cooperation Strategy, as well as the NATO Front Door for Industry initiative, aimed at turning rearmament commitments into actual factories and supply contracts.

Romanian comments following the meeting, however, were somewhat subdued. An Adevărul interview with political scientist Teodor Moga noted that the Black Sea was not explicitly mentioned in the final Ankara Declaration, even though Romania had arrived hoping that the region would once again take center stage on NATO’s agenda and receive concrete support for anti-drone systems. According to the same analysis, Romania has nevertheless achieved some of its goals–there has been no reduction in the U.S. military presence on Romanian territory, contrary to the cutbacks announced last fall. At the same time, the trilateral group for countering mine threats in the Black Sea is expanding. Furthermore, Romania has joined as a founding member of the new bank in the field of defense and resilience. These actions, combined with the arrival of the corvette and the summit in Ankara, demonstrate how quickly Romanian-Turkish defense cooperation has moved from a declarative partnership to concrete substance. Nevertheless, foreign policy circles in Bucharest maintain a certain degree of restraint and caution regarding relations with Ankara.

From declarations to action

The strategic partnership between Romania and Türkiye dates back to 2011, but it took on new significance after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 placed Black Sea security at the center of European strategic planning. The relationship was further institutionalized in 2024 through the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, and this year has yielded its most tangible results to date.

The corvette itself, built by the Turkish state-owned shipyard ASFAT and originally intended for the Turkish Navy as a “Hisar”-class vessel named TCG Akhisar, was transferred to Romania under an intergovernmental agreement signed in late 2025, valued at approximately 223 million euros and including training and technical support. Bucharest has allocated an additional €42 million through the end of 2026 to achieve full combat readiness, with Naval Strike Missiles to be procured and integrated through funding from the European SAFE mechanism.

The delivery also marked a technological first: the Turkish state-owned defense electronics firm Havelsan supplied Romania with the ADVENT combat information and control system along with the ship, making Romania the first NATO member state to receive this technology, which had previously been exported only to non-NATO countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, and Qatar.

The story is similar when it comes to land equipment. In April 2026, the Turkish armored vehicle manufacturer Otokar acquired Automecanica S.A.–a factory in the Transylvanian city of Mediaș–for nearly 85 million euros. The deal provides Otokar with its first production base in the EU and supports a contract to supply 1,059 COBRA II 4×4 armored vehicles to the Romanian Ministry of Defense, with technology transfer to the Romanian plant and full-scale assembly set to begin in June 2026. Otokar General Manager Aykut Özüner was quoted by C4Defence as saying that the investment demonstrates the transfer of Turkish high-tech manufacturing capacity to Europe, and he described the Romanian facility as a future regional hub for defense projects.

Interestingly, the acquisition also resolved an awkward situation for the Romanian authorities: Automecanica’s previous owners were businessmen with ties to Russia and documented contacts with sanctioned figures in Moscow. The Romanian authorities had to review the entity in question through their foreign investment screening body before the Turkish acquisition could be finalized, reported KNEWS.MEDIA.

Romanian-Turkish defense cooperation is taking place against the backdrop of exceptionally favorable bilateral economic relations. Bilateral trade has grown from about $1.2 billion in 2003 to about $13.5 billion today, with both governments aiming to further expand it to $20 billion by 2028. More than 11,500 Turkish companies are already operating in Romania, and Turkish investments exceed $7.5 billion, according to consultant Alexandru Coita, who describes the Istanbul–Bucharest corridor as one of the most dynamic industrial and logistics axes in Europe. The investment figures are also confirmed by other sources: Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz was quoted by the Anadolu Agency as saying that Turkish direct investment in Romania has reached $7.5 billion, adding that Romania is among the top ten destinations in the EU for Turkish capital and is the leading European market for Turkish construction companies.

Voices from Bucharest: Enthusiasm and Caution Regarding Cooperation with Türkiye

Romanian commentary on relations with Türkiye is often enthusiastic. Koita’s article in Türkiye Today argues that Türkiye holds the key to the Black Sea through the Montreux Convention, while Romania is the gateway to the EU single market via Constanța–neither country, he writes, can fully realize its strategic potential without the other. A commentary in Daily Sabah, co-authored by Romanian and Turkish researchers, argues that the technological dimension–artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, drones, and space–remains noticeably underdeveloped compared to the hardware sector, and calls on the presidents of Romania and Türkiye to open a special channel for technology exchange.

Foreign policy analyst Ștefan Popescu, a former state secretary at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, advocated a similar position in a commentary published on his YouTube channel around the time of the corvette’s handover. He argues that the real stakes of the Dan–Erdoğan meeting are the tacit acknowledgement that Romania’s security in the Black Sea cannot be conceived without Türkiye. Popescu suggested that the bilateral partnership could become the core of a broader regional framework, including Italy and Hungary. In foreign policy, Popescu concluded, geography tends to have the final say.

Speaking separately to Europa FM before the summit, Popescu was more emphatic: Türkiye is currently the only Black Sea power capable of making its voice heard in major NATO capitals on issues related to the Black Sea, while Romania lacks the same clout–which is why dialogue with Ankara is Romania’s top priority.

Reservations in Bucharest

Alongside successful joint projects, Romanian experts have hinted that relations with Türkiye are more complex.

Political scientist Alexandru Balaș, interviewed by Adevărul, argues that Türkiye remains a vital military ally for Romania’s security despite what Balas called Erdogan’s duplicitous attitude toward Vladimir Putin. Türkiye trades extensively with Russia, but according to Balaș’s interpretation, it nonetheless defends Romania in the Black Sea in exchange for diplomatic support in Brussels. An analysis by Carnegie Europe describes Türkiye’s stance toward Russia as “managed rivalry,” noting that Ankara’s trade with Moscow has grown during the war and that Kyiv is disappointed by Türkiye’s tolerance of the transit through the Bosphorus of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – a source of tension that Romania is monitoring closely, as it relies on the same straits regime itself.

There are also tensions closer to home. The interview with Teodor Moga cited above, conducted after the NATO summit in Ankara, highlights Türkiye’s absence and Bulgaria’s low-level participation at the B9 meeting organized by Romania in Bucharest the previous month. According to Moga, Romania’s ambition to become a major security hub in the Black Sea is not viewed entirely positively in Ankara. Former Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu, in another interview with Adevărul, rejects the idea that Romania must choose between strategic partners (the U.S., Germany, France, Türkiye…), calling such a framework unproductive–but the very fact that such a choice is even being discussed in Bucharest is indicative of the existing contradictions both internationally and within Romania’s political elite.

NATO 3.0

To understand Romania’s specific relationship with Türkiye, it may be helpful to clarify the institutional meaning of the concept “NATO 3.0”–a term used to describe an Alliance in which European countries carry greater weight. Much of European integration in the defense industry already takes place through EU instruments, to which Türkiye, as a non-EU country, does not have full access.

Cyprus and Greece have officially blocked Turkish participation in SAFE, with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides confirming that the EU has accepted his government’s position that no third country claiming territory or threatening the security of a member state cannot benefit from the Union’s financial instruments in the field of defense. For some in Bucharest, this poses a real risk: that the formula “a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO,” used by Secretary General Mark Rutte, could in practice mean a defense architecture organized primarily around EU membership–one in which Türkiye remains structurally excluded from the room where the rules for funding and public procurement are set. Foreign Policy highlights the reservations of Greece and Israel, which are also important partners of Romania: a diplomatic victory for Erdogan in Ankara is not necessarily good news throughout the Alliance, given his tensions with Greece over the Aegean Sea and mutual hostility with Israel.

SAFE: a mechanism Türkiye cannot access on its own–and why Romania matters

Here, Romania’s role takes on structural, rather than merely diplomatic, significance. Under SAFE rules, no more than 35 percent of the estimated component cost of the end product may originate outside the EU, EEA-EFTA states and Ukraine. Third countries require unanimous EU approval to participate–approval that Türkiye has not received due to a veto related to Cyprus and the Aegean disputes with Greece, as detailed in publications by the Greek think tank ELIAMEP and Türkiye Today.

This is precisely why Romania is not merely a customer for Turkish arms, but a structural gateway to them. When Otokar manufactures the COBRA II vehicles at its plant in Mediaș, rather than shipping finished vehicles from Türkiye, there are greater chances that production counts as EU-manufactured content–potentially meeting the 65 percent local content threshold and making the program, or future similar ones, eligible for SAFE funding in a way that direct Turkish imports never could. Bucharest has access to 16.68 billion euros through SAFE under its own legal framework, and intends to use part of those funds to arm the Turkish-built corvette with “Naval Strike Missiles” (The NSM is manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg, and Norway is a member of the EEA–EFTA, so it falls within the eligible industrial area under the SAFE regulation. Consequently, SAFE complements the capability of a platform built in Turkey by integrating components from the EU/EEA/EFTA).

Concerns at the European level about the European character of the SAFE program are not merely declarative. Greek MEP Georgios Aftias submitted an official written question to the European Commission in November 2025, warning that non-EU countries excluded from SAFE –specifically mentioning Türkiye–could find indirect routes to EU defense funding through other instruments such as InvestEU, and warned against “EU-based companies controlled by non-EU countries” acting as a kind of “Trojan horse,” allowing Türkiye to participate in European programs. Aftias’s question was raised prior to the deal between Otokar and Automecanica and did not specifically name Romania, but the Greek defense policy think tank Strategy International separately highlighted the general pattern–EU member states welcoming Turkish industrial partnerships, as Italy did with Leonardo and Baykar–as potentially facilitating Türkiye’s indirect participation in projects funded under SAFE, even without Türkiye’s formal accession to the program.

No official EU representative has yet publicly and specifically commented on the Romanian deal with Otokar in these terms, but the structural argument put forward by these voices applies directly to it as well: production localized in an EU member state is emerging as Ankara’s most realistic path to try to reduce the obstacles to its participation in EU defense sector. For Romania, for its part, the agreement serves a separate, long-standing goal that is linked to building its own production base in the defense industry and creating jobs, rather than remaining a net importer of finished military platforms.

Romania and Türkiye, along with Canada and other countries, established a new bank in Ankara

The July 2026 summit also gave birth to a brand-new institution: the Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank (Defense, Security, and Resilience Bank, DSRB)–a Canadian initiative aimed at raising up to $134 billion to finance defense and security. Romania joined Canada, Albania, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Türkiye, and Ukraine as a founding member.

Since Ukraine is not a NATO member, the DSRB is technically a coalition of the willing rather than an official Alliance body, but it is designed to function as a multilateral development bank, lowering borrowing costs and mobilizing private capital for industrial capacity. It is expected to begin operations in 2027, though analysts warn that without larger economies such as the United States or Germany, its capitalization will remain limited.

For Romania, membership is significant on two levels: from a practical standpoint, it opens a second channel for low-cost financing, alongside SAFE, for naval and land systems programs already being implemented with Turkish partners; from a symbolic standpoint, it places Romania and Türkiye side by side as co-founders of a new Euro-Atlantic financial architecture–one in which, unlike SAFE, Türkiye is not excluded.

Bulgaria and trilateral cooperation in the Black Sea

While bilateral relations between Türkiye and Romania provide the equipment, trilateral relations with Bulgaria ensure operational cohesion. Since January 2024, Romania, Türkiye, and Bulgaria have been leading the Black Sea Mine Action Task Force–the first initiative of its kind among the three Black Sea NATO member states, tasked with mine clearance, protecting maritime corridors, and supporting rescue operations under a rotating six-month command. During the NATO summit in Ankara in 2026, the defense ministers of the three countries signed an addendum to their agreement, expanding the group’s mandate to include the protection of critical underwater infrastructure in response to the situation in the Black Sea, marked by scattered mines, drone strikes, and sabotage risks linked to the war in Ukraine.

This trilateral framework provides Romania’s bilateral cooperation with Türkiye with an operational basis recognized by NATO, allowing Bucharest to point to a permanent, multinational NATO-related mission–in which Bulgaria also participates–as a practical expression of this partnership.

Outlook

Defense relations between Romania and Türkiye in 2026 combine actual deliveries, institutional support, and existing tensions.

The corvette currently patrolling from Constanța and the Otokar plant in Mediaș demonstrate that the partnership can provide military equipment, create jobs, and facilitate technology transfer on Romanian territory, as well as potentially to mitigate the curbs of the SAFE programme for non-EU parties. Bulgaria’s participation in the joint mission to clear mines and protect underwater infrastructure maintains relations within a multilateral framework consistent with NATO. But Romanian analysts themselves are aware that cooperation with Türkiye also involves tensions related to Türkiye’s tolerance of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” its rivalry with Greece and disputes with Israel, as well as the development of the European defense architecture, which could structurally prioritize EU membership over the Black Sea’s geographical location as a criterion for selecting partners.

For years, the EU has been moving increasingly toward a “variable geometry” union–a metaphor that embodies the idea of a multi-speed Europe and a variety of alliances and partnerships. It remains to be seen whether Romanian foreign policy analyst Ștefan Popescu–a graduate of the French school of geopolitics–is correct when he says that, in international relations, geography has the final say.

Photo: ROS Contraamiral August Roman (source: YouTube)

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