Romania chose Israel's Spyder system in a tender for air defence systems, which it is not satisfied with
Since the end of 2023, Romania has been trying to select a replacement for the outdated MIM-23 Hawk anti-aircraft missile systems, but the announced tender risks ending in failure. The fact is that there is only one participant left in the competition with a proposal that does not meet the requirements.
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It is the Israeli Spyder system from Rafael, writes Defence Romania. At the final stage, it competed with proposals from Diehl with IRIS-T SLS and IRIS-T SLM, as well as VL Mica from MBDA.
However, the European companies dropped out of the competition due to the inflated price. At the end of 2024, the Korean LIG Nex1 with the LAMD air defence system also withdrew from the tender due to a mistake in the preparation of documents: they did not provide a receipt for a 1% contract performance bond.
The IRIS-T air defence system. Illustration: Timm Ziegenthaler
At the same time, Rafael's proposal also did not meet the tender's price condition. It was supposed to supply six short- and medium-range air defence missile systems (SHORAD-VSHORAD) for €1.9 billion, with six separate medium-range and six short-range systems. A total of 18 systems with an average cost of €100 million each.
The Spyder surface-to-air missile system. Illustration: Rafael
The winner could immediately count on the second stage of the contract, which increased the total value to €2.7 billion for 27 systems. In total, the Romanian Ministry of Defence planned to purchase 41 systems worth €4.2 billion, with completion by the 30s.
Romania developed a specific evaluation system for this tender: the technological solution had a weight of 50%, the price - 30%, and the delivery time - 20%. However, this system was never applied due to the non-compliance of all participants with the price criteria.
The reasons why none of the bidders were able to meet the budget have not yet been announced. It is also not known what will happen next with the tender and the rearmament programme, which has already been spent for a year and a half to no avail.
Source: Defence Romania