Romania's leftist government has approved a plan to buy second-hand F-16 fighter jets from Portugal to bring its air force up to NATO standards, it said on Wednesday.
_0">The European Union member joined NATO in 2004 and has been Washington's military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is in the process of phasing out its outdated Soviet-made MiG-21s.
The defence ministry will buy 12 jets from Portugal and pay a little over 600 million euros, including maintenance, in installments until 2017.
Romania shelved a multi-billion euro plan to buy fighter jets in 2009 as its economy plunged into deep recession and the global financial crisis forced it to resort to international aid.