Romania's Parliament has approved the purchase of two Scorpene submarines produced by the French company Naval Group. According to official documents, Romania will also purchase two second-hand but upgraded mine-hunting vessels through a G2G (government-to-government) agreement with the UK.
As for the submarines, the programme will run for eight years and is estimated to be worth €2 billion. Romania will buy two French Scorpene submarines.
Poland, on the other hand, will also launch the ''Orka'' military programme this year to buy new-generation submarines.
The Orka programme is one of Poland's biggest naval projects. The Polish defence ministry has long planned to acquire third-generation diesel-electric submarines capable of operating outside the Baltic Sea and launching long-range cruise missiles.
Poland and Romania both have the Scorpene submarines as an option, at least for now, but the Poles are upping the ante and talking about nuclear-powered submarines for the first time
In 2012, Poland also tried to start equipping submarines, receiving offers from three groups. These were Naval Group with Scorpene - the solution chosen by Romania -, A26 developed by Swedish Saab Kockums and Type 212A and 214A of German holding company Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems.
It is expected that the same offers will be made again this year
But Poland is not ruling out nuclear submarines, which would put it squarely in the elite club of the US, UK, France, India, China and Russia. Australia will be added to the list after Canberra initially chose Barracuda nuclear submarines, but following the price explosion and the new AUKUS alliance, it switched to US nuclear submarines, triggering a major diplomatic row between France and the US at the time.
Polish official Lieutenant-Colonel Krzysztof Platek, spokesman for the Armaments Agency, spoke for the first time about the possibility of Poland acquiring nuclear submarines at the expense of conventional ones.
,,Solutions such as nuclear-powered submarines can never be ruled out because such technology gives us full ocean capability. Such a solution remains an open question and the answer will be related to the financial possibilities and requirements that the Polish Navy will have", the Polish official said, as quoted by PortalMorski.pl.
Both Romania and Poland have only one Soviet-era submarine. While the Romanian Dolphin has been in service since 1996, the Polish submarine ORP Orzel is in service but has limited capabilities.
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