Romania Signs €1 Billion Deal with France: 12 H225M Helicopters and 12 GM200 Radars under SAFE
Romania’s Ministry of Defence has signed a government-to-government agreement with France worth around €1 billion, covering 12 Airbus H225M multi-role transport helicopters and 12 Thales Ground Master 200 MM/A radars. The package, signed on 22 July, is financed through the European Union’s SAFE (Security Action for Europe) loan instrument.
France’s Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) acts as the ordering authority, with procurement structured under the French state framework. The helicopter package is valued at €757 million and the radar package at €247 million — roughly €100 million below earlier SAFE programme estimates, according to Bucharest.
What Romania is buying
With this order Romania joins France and Hungary as an H225M operator within NATO. The 11-tonne twin-engine helicopter serves tactical transport, combat search-and-rescue and special-operations missions. Both packages include logistics and training support.
The Thales GM200 MM/A is a medium-range multi-mission AESA radar covering weapon-locating, air surveillance and ground-based air-defence fire control in a single mobile platform. NATO operators including the Netherlands and Denmark have fielded versions of the family.
SAFE delivers its first big-ticket contracts
The €150 billion SAFE loan pool is designed to channel joint European procurement toward the continent’s defence industry. The Romanian package stands among the largest SAFE-financed deals converted into firm contracts so far, and it illustrates how eastern-flank states are closing air-mobility and radar-coverage gaps with European-built systems — a trend with direct consequences for competitors outside the EU framework, from US primes to Türkiye’s helicopter and radar industries.
Sources
An Airbus H225M Caracal in low-level flight over water (file photo). Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
