The Consultative Council on National Security had a sitting on Monday, initiated by President and Supreme Commander Rossen Plevneliev. All parliamentary presented parties and the main ministers from the cabinet are its members. The latest session was devoted to the state and problems of the Bulgarian armed forces in today’s tense and conflict situation in Europe and across the globe. A special report with proposals for measures and reforms was promoted by Defense Minister Nikolay Nenchev. He insisted on urgent modernization of the army, also rearmament and increasing of state subsidies for the defense sector in compliance with the Wales-adopted directives and instructions of NATO. After the sitting the main figures that this country’s defense policy depends on voiced to the public their satisfaction with the council’s recommendations, as it had reconfirmed Bulgaria’s engagements to NATO with the assurance that the main principles and requirements of the alliance would be complied with and implemented here.

However, analysts saw several stances that would obviously be decisive at the formulation and adoption of the final parliamentary legislative changes on the armed forces, despite all this pro-NATO rhetoric. PM Borissov attracted the greatest attention by thickly underlining in his typical direct manner that whoever had promised any additional money to be allocated at the defense sector would have to point at their source as well. “We don’t have that opportunity for 2015 and I have informed all the partners on that,” the Premier went on to say. “First we’ll take care of the pensions, then the infrastructure, the education sector… We will implement that reform in the army in 2016 with the money collected from the National Revenue Agency and the Customs and all the measures taken in the fight with corruption and smuggling,” the Premier said.

That seeming mismatch with the stance of President Plevneliev, saying that the armed forces are a national strategic priority has obviously been well-thought, reflecting the distributions of the roles between the presidential and executive powers. On one hand a clear message is sent that Bulgaria is a loyal and secure ally in NATO, but on the other it is clarified that it doesn’t have the funds necessary for rearmament and will wait for external support for its army’s modernization.

Thus the Bulgarian army with barely 30,000 men and women serving will continue to be armed with outdated Russian weapons coming almost from the WWII era, with Russian planes that are too old to fly and with second hand naval vessels with no money provided for their maintenance. At the same time the troops and their officers will receive brand new uniforms as early as this year – Made in Bulgaria.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev