A €920 million program to rebuild Romania’s navy sits frozen at a silent, bankrupt Black Sea shipyard where roughly 1,000 workers have been let go, and the country’s own economy minister says a Dutch creditor, not the Romanian state, now controls what happens next, days before a second auction Wednesday.
Economy Minister Irineu Darău said legal control over the bankrupt Damen Shipyards Mangalia rests with court administrator CITR and Dutch group Damen, which holds roughly 97 percent of the insolvency claims. Damen ran the yard for years and pulled out in 2024. German defense giant Rheinmetall, which won the €920 million contract to build four vessels in Romania under the European Union’s SAFE fund, skipped the first sale entirely.
The collapse has already scattered the workforce. Laurențiu Gobeajă, head of the yard’s Navalistul union, warned the specialists will not wait around.
“In six months or a year, it won’t matter for many of the workers, because they’ll be forced to leave the city or the country, to where their work is valued and where they have safety and stability,” Gobeajă said.
Rheinmetall was floated for months as the yard’s rescuer. It entered no bid at the June 29 auction. Asked why, a spokesman offered one line.
“Please understand that, as a matter of principle, we do not comment on ongoing commercial matters,” Rheinmetall spokesman Jan-P. Weisswange said.
Rheinmetall has built the same patrol ships in Varna, Bulgaria, and says it would use only 10 to 15 percent of the yard’s capacity to fill the order. Damen lost that warship contract to Rheinmetall. Yet as the dominant creditor, it helped set the sale terms: a €184 million starting price, more than double the yard’s €84 million liquidation value, with at least six auctions at the same figure. Defense Minister Radu Miruță suggested buyers are waiting it out.
“I imagine those who might be interested are waiting for the price to drop to its real value,” Miruță said.
Darău put the burden squarely on the creditor and the court administrator.
“Responsibility for the further conduct of operations at DSMa, and for avoiding its liquidation, therefore falls to these entities,” Darău said.
The idle yard comes as Romania, a NATO member on the alliance’s eastern flank, faces repeated Russian and Ukrainian drone incursions along its Black Sea coast. Brussels pledged full solidarity after a Russian drone struck an apartment building in the country in May.
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