Romania is leaving a military agreement signed with Egypt in 1976 and replacing it with a new one

Until now, military cooperation between Romania and Egypt rested on an agreement signed in Bucharest in April 1976, between the Socialist Republic of Romania and the Arab Republic of Egypt. Law no. 140/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 573 of 13 July 2026, ratifies the document that replaces it. It is the second move of this kind in the same issue of the Official Gazette of Romania, alongside the agreement with the Republic of Moldova on coordinated control at the Fălciu-Cantemir railway crossing point.

The memorandum was signed in Cairo on 2 November 2025 by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence, Liviu-Ionuț Moșteanu, and by Egypt’s Commander-in-Chief, Minister of Defence and Military Production, General Abdel Mageed Saqr.

The document is not an alliance treaty and lays down no obligation of military assistance. It is a framework for cooperation: eight fields, five working formats, a committee that meets once a year and an annual plan of activities.

What it changes in practice

The 1976 agreement disappears. The parties expressly agreed that, on the date the memorandum enters into force, the Agreement between the Government of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt on cooperation in the military-technical and military-economic fields, signed in Bucharest on 16 April 1976, ceases to be valid.

Cooperation covers eight fields. Training of military personnel, medicine and logistics, protection of the environment, peacekeeping operations, defence planning, education, defence industries, and cultural and sporting activities.

There are five working formats. Official and working visits, exchanges of military personnel and attendance at courses, conferences and seminars, joint military exercises, meetings between delegations of staff officers, and exchanges of information and documents.

A permanent bilateral structure appears. The Romanian-Egyptian Joint Military Committee meets once a year, alternately in Romania and in Egypt, and its members are appointed by the defence ministers of the two states.

Costs are shared under the host’s rule. The receiving party bears accommodation, food, dental and medical emergencies, cultural activities and internal transport, while the sending party pays for international transport. All of it on a reciprocal basis.

A Romanian serviceman in Egypt answers under Egyptian criminal law. The personnel of the sending party are under the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving party’s state for the duration of their stay. The memorandum does provide, however, that no judicial measure is taken before the sending party has been notified of the offence committed.

Disciplinary offences stay with the home state. For military disciplinary offences committed on the territory of the other state, the measures are taken by the authorities of the sending party, under their own military laws and regulations, following negotiations with the authorities of the receiving party.

Nobody can be put to work outside the agreed framework. The receiving party may not assign to the military personnel of the sending party any military task or other activity for its own benefit, outside the memorandum.

Classified information has a regime of its own, but a limited one. The table of equivalence covers three levels: the Romanian „Strict secret” corresponds to the English „Secret”, „Secret” corresponds to „Confidential”, and „Secret de serviciu” to „Restricted”. The highest level in Romanian law, „strict secret de importanță deosebită”, the top state secret classification, does not appear in the table. For the exchange itself, the parties are to sign a separate agreement.

Disputes go nowhere outside the two states. Article 11 states that any dispute arising from the interpretation or application of the memorandum is settled by consultations and direct negotiations, without recourse to a third party or to any national or international judicial body, or to international arbitration.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The most visible difference is one of subject matter. The 1976 agreement concerned cooperation in the military-technical and military-economic fields, which in the language of the period meant mainly the production and delivery of military equipment. The 2025 memorandum puts training, education, defence planning and peacekeeping operations first, and defence industries remain only one of the eight fields.

The second change is institutional. Where the old agreement worked through occasional contacts, the new document creates the Joint Military Committee, with a compulsory annual meeting and an alternating venue, plus a calendar: by the end of September each year the joint activities for the following year are settled.

The third change concerns duration and exit. The memorandum remains in force for five years and is automatically extended for successive periods of five years, unless one of the parties gives written notice, at least three months before expiry, that it wishes to denounce it. Termination does not affect joint projects and programmes already under way.

The fourth difference, the least discussed, concerns the legal status of personnel. The memorandum expressly places the servicemen of the sending party under the criminal jurisdiction of the host state, with an obligation of prior notification. That is a different solution from the SOFA-type agreements in force among allies, where the home state keeps, in certain situations, jurisdiction over its own servicemen.

It is also worth noting that the text published in the Official Gazette of Romania is expressly marked as a translation, and that the memorandum was drawn up in Romanian, Arabic and English, all texts being equally authentic. In the event of differences of interpretation, the English text prevails.

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