Paul Brummel, UK Ambassador to Romania, said on Saturday that the presence of standing NATO maritime groups in Constanta, which HMS Duncan and HMS Enterprise are part of, sends a strong message of certainty for the navigation freedom in the Black Sea.
“I believe that the presence of the standing NATO maritime groups in Constanta, SNMG-2 (Standing NATO Maritime Group 2) and SNMCMG-2 (Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2), which include HMS Duncan destroyer and multi-role hydrographic/oceanographic survey vessel HMS Enterprise, sends a very strong signal, a message of certainty that the Black Sea will remain a free sea, a sea for everyone, that the UK is by the side of the colleagues of Romania to ensure the European and allied security,” the British Ambassador pointed out aboard destroyer Duncan.
Paul Brummell said that on Saturday, when he visited HMS Enterprise in the port of Constanta, he remembered that the last visit aboard the ship was in his previous diplomatic mandate in the Caribbean.
Ambassador Brummell noted that 2017 was the most intense in the history of defense bilateral co-operation, enumerating the two visits of the HMS Duncan destroyer to Constanta, the presence of a thousand British soldiers who participated in exercises with Romanian comrades and deployment at the “Mihail Kogalniceanu” Air Base of a detachment of four Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to help ensure NATO’s airspace.
In turn, SNMG2 Commander Mike Utley detailed the specifics of the missions of its naval group and the context in which it acts in the Black Sea and Mediterranean basin.