On 16 February 2022, NATO’s Air Battle Decisive Munitions (ABDM) High Visibility Project welcomed Romania as its fifteenth participant. A signing ceremony, led by Mircea Geoană, NATO Deputy Secretary General, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, Minister of National Defence of the ABDM’s lead nation – Greece, and Vasile Dîncu, Minister of National Defence of Romania, took place in the margins of the Meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Brussels.
The ABDM initiative has been giving Allies access to critical air-launched munitions under more favorable conditions since its start in 2014. The NATO Deputy Secretary General said: “[ABDM] has already lived up to this promise since 2018. Through innovative acquisition strategies, participants have reduced their cost for precision guided munitions by 15 to 20 percent. In response to urgent operational requirements, they were able to cut down delivery timelines by up to one year. At the same time, they significantly improved the interoperability and shareability of their stockpiles, making NATO troops a more unified force in operations”.
Romania officially joined the other participants – Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom.