June 23 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's defence ministry said it plans to spend 3.54 billion levs ($2.02 billion/1.8 billion euro) on rearmament programmes between 2017 and 2029.
The programmes envisage purchasing new combat aircraft for 1.5 billion levs, multi purpose modular patrol vessels for 820 million levs and military equipment for land forces worth 1.22 billion levs, defence minister Krasimir Karakachanov said in the plan sumbitted for approval to the government on Thursday. The plan is posted on the website of the defence ministry.
Expenditure of 2.4 billion levs on acquiring new aircraft and patrol ships by 2020 was approved by the previous parliament last year.
Now, under Karakachanov's proposal, the timeline for the payments for the acquisition of new combat aircraft and patrol ships will be extended to accomodate an added programme for rearmament of land forces, to be launched in 2018.
According to the plan, the three projects will contribute to a great extent to overcoming the deficit of capabilities in the country's armed forces to ensure their interoperability with the armies of other NATO and EU member states in joint operations, Karakachanov said.
The payments for new military hardware will be divided into tranches, with the last one for combat aircraft to be made in 2025, by 2022 for the patrol ships and by 2029 for the equipment for the land forces.
In 2014, at the NATO summit in Wales, Bulgaria committed to a defence spending target of 2% of GDP, to be reached in the following 10 years.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)