Bulgaria’s Finances Squeezing Existing Arms Deals

F910 Wielingen(click to view full) Bulgaria’s government recently allocated BGN 256 million (about EUR 131M/ $174M) from the country’s fiscal reserve in order to complete a number of arms deals, lest it find key defense items repossessed. Bulgaria is actually one of the few NATO countries to meet the agreed 2% of GDP threshold for defense spending. The problem is a low base. Decades of communist rule left Bulgaria poor, and even among its peers in the former Warsaw Pact, its economic ranking was and is low. The recent financial crisis has hit the country hard, and left a number of key arms deals short on cash. While these deals are small in the context of global arms flows, they loom large in the context of Bulgaria’s overall military capabilities… Bulgarian AS532(click to view full) The smallest adjustment involves a deal for 3 used Belgian ships: 2 Wielingen Class frigates and a Tripartite class minesweeper. The vessels have already been transferred to the Bulgarian Navy, but the country still owes Belgium about EUR 1 million (about 1.95 million Bulgarian Levs) from the payment that it was supposed to make in 2009. Another adjustment involves Bulgaria’s modest fleet of 5 ordered […]