The parliamentary committee on defense and budget approved earlier this week the two biggest projects for the modernization of the Bulgarian army – for the acquisition of a new type of fighter jets and of two patrol ships.

The ruling party Gerb insisted on buying new fighting equipment for the land forces, but because of budgetary restrictions the Finance Ministry gave the green light to the first two projects alone. Despite this drawback, an impression has been created that the long delayed modernization of the army though troubled by financial restrictions will finally begin.

However, the start of modernization is likely to be delayed, as certain hesitation remains. The Patriotic Front which supports the ruling coalition has voiced reservations over plans to acquire warships worth in excess of 400 million euro with the argument that “it is already known which company would profit from part of the deal’s worth”. The government plans to assign a Bulgarian company with building the ships and it recently gave priority to this project at the expense of ideas to upgrade the Navy’s three Belgian frigates. The Socialists are not enthusiastic about the new warships either, as they doubt that ship building should be given top priority at all.

Unsurprisingly for an opposition group, the Bulgarian Socialist Party has reservations concerning the acquisition of a new type of fighter jets because as the party claimed it had been given no figures about such a deal. According to unofficial reports, the Defense Ministry plans to arrange the acquisition through an interstate agreement rather than through a tender – meaning that the deal will be political. At this stage it mulls buying either Swedish Gripen jets or used Eurofighter or F-16 jets. Eurofighter is a tangibly more expensive fighter jet and Bulgaria can hardly afford it, so despite the preference of the Air Force for new equipment it will most probably have to choose between the Swedish Gripen and used F-16.

Parallel to the preparation of the project for purchasing new fighter jets the Soviet MiG-29s will be maintained as well though without serious upgrades because after buying new jets these will be removed from service. The total worth of the two projects laid out in the midterm outlook of the Ministry of Finance until 2019, is 2.4billion leva (1.2 billion euro).The highest expenses will be made in 2020 and 2021 when they are expected to reach from 0.4% to 0.6% of GDP.

The financial burden is going to be huge, but it will most probably be accepted by the opposition. For the time being, the Socialists have demonstrated reservations but no explicit objection while DPS (the predominantly Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms) already said it was going to vote in favor of the investment decision. Despite a few hesitations, the modernization of the army is heading to a start.

English Daniela Konstantinova