Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Wednesday that the country needed to spend more on the armed forces.

“We have to assume our role as guardian of one of Europe’s and NATO’s borders. In that context, we have to raise military spending in coming years to reach 2 per cent of GDP by 2017,” he said. “New security challenges should occur, so Romania has to be ready to face them,” he added.

The defence budget in Romania was only 1.36 per cent of GDP last year, well below the average European rate of around 2 per cent.

Currently, Romania is concerned that after annexing the peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine, Russia may attempt a land grab in neighboring Moldova. Russian troops are already stationed in the breakaway republic of Transnistria.

Romania has been among the strongest regional backers of Western sanctions against Russia since it annexed Crimea. Last week, President Traian Basescu urged NATO to reposition its resources in the east in the wake of Moscow’s military operations.

In a related development, the United States is to deploy 600 more marines in southeastern Romania, at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Airport Administrative Center, Basescu announced on Wednesday.

Following the new deployment, the total size of the US military in Romania will reach a maximum of 1,600 troops. Mihail Kogalniceanu airport became a major US military base in 2007.

NATO-member Romania is one of Washington’s strongest supporters among the ex-Communist countries of Eastern Europe.

Last October, the installation of US missile interceptors began at the Deveselu military base in southern Romania.

The interceptors are to be installed at Deveselu by 2015 as part of the second phase of the US-led project to build a missile shield in Europe – a scheme viewed with deep suspicion by Russia. The work at Deveselu involve an estimated investment of $400 million in the base.

While concerned about Russia, many Romanians are sensitive to the high cost of military spending, considering that the country has been in recession for most of the past five years.

Romania has spent more than a billion euro on sending troops to serve abroad in NATO missions in the Western Balkans, Afghanistan and North Africa.

Currently, some 2,000 Romanian troops are serving abroad, more than 1,700 of whom are deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in the restive south. Their number is expected to be cut by a third this year.

More than 65 per cent of Romanians oppose any military involvement in foreign armed conflicts, according to polls.