Romanian Army Registers Major Personnel Shortages

Amid increased fears of a threat from Russia, the Romanian Army has registered a huge deficit in personnel, with 43 per cent of officers’ positions unfilled, but officials have ruled out introducing compulsory military service.

Romanian Special Forces soldiers during the Trojan Footprint military exercise, May 2022. Photo: Romanian Defence Ministry

The Defence Ministry in Bucharest said on Tuesday that the Romanian Army is missing a significant percentage of the personnel it needs, although officials insisted that only a new voluntary military service scheme will be introduced to boost numbers in the ranks.

According to data provided by Defence Minister Angel Tilvar, 43 per cent of officers’ positions are unfilled, 25 per cent of majors’ positions, 28 per cent of non-commissioned officers’ positions, 23 per cent of soldiers and other professional ranks’ positions, and 11 per cent of civilian staff jobs.

Low salary levels are seen as the leading cause of the Romanian Army’s personnel shortage.

Some officers and other Army employees have won cases against the Defence Ministry over financial claims. In one such case in 2021, 95 soldiers sued the ministry because it did not pay them daily allowances for UN missions.

Nicolae Ciuca, president of the Senate, the upper house of Romania’s parliament, who is also a former prime minister and a retired general, told Digi 24 TV station that Romania does not have the necessary infrastructure to introduce compulsory military service.

“On the one hand, to have a mandatory Army again, we need a very well-prepared infrastructure because you cannot push people into the Army; those times are gone. On the other hand, you can’t bring them in and not take care of them,” explained Ciuca.

However, the possibility of conscription being brought in is increasingly being discussed in the public arena against the background of an increase in Russian military activity in the region.

The head of the Defence Staff, General Gheorghita Vlad, told Radio Free Europe that the law on preparing the public to defend the country should be quickly amended in light of the Romanian Army’s current shortage of soldiers.

“At the moment, we have around 80,000 professional soldiers,” said Vlad. However, he said that he believes that “a sufficient force for a professional army in Romania would be somewhere around 120,000”.

However, the Defence Ministry told BIRN that “the institution does not intend to and has not analysed the possibility of introducing a form of mandatory military training, but only voluntary solutions.”

“The Defence Staff initiated a project to amend and supplement law number 446/2006 regarding the preparation of the population for defence, in which it is proposed to introduce a new form of active military service, a term-based voluntary military service, for Romanian citizens, men and women, with permanent residence in Romania, between the ages of 18 and 35, who want to have military training,” the Defence Ministry said.

The ministry added that “this form of training will not replace military service as a voluntary reservist, but comes as an addition”.

Following the restructuring and modernisation of the Romanian Army, military forces were massively reduced from an army of over 300,000 men in 1990 to approximately 80,000 after 2000. Romania has been a member of NATO since 2004.