June 23 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's prime minister Boyko Borissov said on Friday the government plans to start negotiations with Sweden over the purchase of Gripen combat aircraft, Sofia-based public radio BNR reported.
After a meeting with Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven in Brussels, Borissov said that he will insist to tie the potential purchase of Gripens to commitment for Swedish investment in Bulgaria, according to national radio broadcaster BNR.
In December 2016, the Bulgarian defence ministry sent a request for proposals (RFP) for the procurement of a new type of combat aircraft to Italy, Portugal and the United States, and Sweden to replace the Bulgarian Air Force's ageing fleet of Russian-made MiG fighter jets.
Bulgaria received offers for new Gripen jets from Sweden’s SAAB, used F-16 from Portugal, equipped with US weaponry, and used Eurofighter Typhoon from Italy.
The assessment of the offers made by the working group appointed by the defence ministry ranked the Swedish offer at the top with 0.9 points, while the Italian offer ranked second with 0.61 points, defence minister Krasimir Karakachanov said in a 2017-2029 arms acquisition plan submitted for approval to the government on Thursday. The offer submitted by Portugal with a logstics package sourced from the United States was not ranked because the price offer failed to meet the requirements set in the RFP.
"The main requirement was deferred payment, which was not met. The price offer is not higher but the major portion of the payment was to be made in the first two years," BNR quoted Karakachanov as saying on Friday.
Bulgaria's defence ministry plans to spend 3.54 billion levs ($2.02 billion/1.8 billion euro) on rearmament programmes between 2017 and 2029, according to the proposed arms acquisition plan for the period which needs parliamentary approval to go into force.
The plan envisages purchasing new combat aircraft for 1.5 billion levs, multi purpose modular patrol vessels for 820 million levs and military vehicles for land forces worth 1.22 billion levs.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)