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Romania has long had a reputation as one of the most corrupt countries in all of Europe. With a judicial system that is regularly used for political motives, corruption continues to flourish. One of the most recent examples of this is a deal arranged by the state armaments company RomArm to sell 400 tons of gunpowder that had been taken from the country’s strategic reserve to EMCO, a Bulgarian armaments company.
The controversy started after the National Administration of State Reserves and Special Problems, led by Georgian Pop, removed 400 tons of gunpowder from the Strategic Reserve for use in the Romanian armaments factories to produce ammunition. Sources told The Balkan that this was necessary because Romanian armaments factories were sitting idle due to chronic shortages of gunpowder for ammunition.
As a result of these chronic shortages of gunpowder, Romania has been forced to import large quantities from Serbia to meet both export needs, as well as the needs of the Romanian Army. The main supplier of gunpowder to the Romanian defense industry is Uni Global, a Serbian company controlled by Nebojsa Novakovic, one of the biggest arms dealers in the Balkans.
Despite the chronic shortage, RomArm, led by Emanuel Ioana, proposed to sell the gunpowder instead to the Bulgarian tycoon Emilian Gebrev, who owns the EMCO armaments company in Bulgaria. Șerban Ianculescu, head of the export service within RomArm, in an internal message, announced EMCO’s intention to purchase the powder from the Romanian company.
When asked by the news outlet DeFapt.ro, Bogdan Hera, the commercial director of RomArm, could not explain why the company wanted to sell the gunpowder received from the Strategic Reserve to Bulgaria instead of using it for Romania’s own needs. “I couldn't answer that question for you. I can't confirm or not that we want to sell it,” Hera told the reporter.
The head of RomArm, Emanuel Ioana is a political appointee. Formerly an economic advisor at the Romanian Embassy in Berlin, Ioana was appointed as head of RomArm by the Minister of Economy from the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Radu Oprea. PSD is a globalist party with a long history of corruption. Ioana has refused to comment on the controversial business decision.
Constantin Bucuroiu, President of the Alliance of Trade Unions for the Defense and Aeronautical Industry, explained to Defapt.ro how the gunpowder business is handled at Romarm. “We sell to Bulgaria cheaply and eventually the Bulgarians will sell it back to us, to our industry. Things like this have happened before.”
Bucuroiu explained that he had sent a memorandum to Minister Oprea informing him that Romanian armaments factories had a period of approximately three months in which they did not have a single gram of gunpowder for the production of ammunition causing Romanian factories to turn down lucrative contracts.
“Factories suffered from a lack of ammunition powder. To buy from Bulgaria costs us a lot, instead of giving it directly to the Romanian industry for improvement. The Bulgarians say they are making improvements and putting it back on the market,” Bucuroiu explained.
The union leader pointed out the perils of the situation, which has happened before when RomArm does not receive powder from the Serbs. “We have penalties, even from our army, for not delivering the ammunition on time. Many contracts that are refused due to the lack of powders. The Romanian industry, instead of advancing, stands still and has losses. Then the Government imposes austerity measures because there are losses.” All this to the detriment of Romanian workers and Romanian national security.
The whistleblower who complained about the backroom deal to send the gunpowder to Bulgaria, head of one of RomArm’s affiliates told The Balkan that he has since been removed from his position in the company in retaliation for making the deal public.
Bulgaria wants to acquire the gunpowder and then resell it on the open market at a higher price. Bulgarian arms magnate Emilian Gebrev, who runs EMCO, produces much of the Soviet-standard tank ammunition and shells used in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Gebrev is a controversial figure who has claimed that Russia has tried to sabotage his factories and that Russian military intelligence tried to kill him twice in 2015. Gebrev works closely with the Western military-industrial complex. One of his companies “Karash Invest” EOOD, was recently declared a strategic objective by Bulgaria’s globalist government, meaning that it is considered vital to national security. Over 50 percent of Bulgarian arms production goes to Ukraine, the largest portion from Gebrev’s company.
Even though Romania borders Ukraine where a war is underway, the country is ill-prepared to meet its own defensive needs. As corruption undermines Romania’s national security, the political appointees running Romania’s defense industry put their personal financial interests ahead of national security. At a time when NATO is focused on the war in Ukraine, they are not paying attention to the corruption that is undermining the defense industry in one of its key member countries. Or is it a deliberate choice to ignore it, given the well-known fact that the government in Bucharest under the control of Washington and Brussels?
The corruption that is going on and steadily growing throughout the world has a direct correlation to the poor leadership of the United States. Biden's weakness and complete lack of integrity is allowing the tyrannical and corrupt leaders the opportunity to take as much as they can while there is no Beacon of Hope as the United States has been. The "dog eat dog', world is overtaking the peace and prosperity that had been enjoyed during the Trump administration.