June 21 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria may need to revise its budget to finance a deal with the U.S. for the delivery of eight F-16 fighter jets, prime minister Boyko Borissov said on Friday.
"The defence ministry has received the U.S. offer, they are discussing it, holding final negotiations. As this funding is not included in the budget, if we come around to signing a contract, we will go to parliament, we will revise the budget and consequently, this money will come from the reserves we have," Borissov said in a video posted on his official Facebook profile.
The U.S. offer for the delivery of eight F-16 Block 70 fighter jets is worth about 2.2 billion levs ($1.2 billion/1.1 billion euro), the prime minister said in another video posted on his website on Thursday.
Earlier this week the defence ministry said that the offer is due to be officially finalised and submitted for approval by the Bulgarian government, but did not disclose any additional details regarding the price. The ministry has said it expects that the price will substantially exceed the initial estimates of 1.8 billion levs.
Bulgaria's state budget for 2019 targets a deficit equivalent to 0.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) projected for that year. Budget revenue is expected to come in at 43.86 billion levs in 2019, while expenses are seen at 44.46 million levs.
Defence, education and social policy are among the priorities of the 2019 budget. In December the government said that it will transfer an additional 113 million levs from this year's central budget to the defence ministry, for the implementation of three defence projects.
Last month, Bulgaria's defence minister Krasimir Karakachanov said the government may ask parliament to start negotiations with Sweden or Italy for the procurement of fighter jets if the ongoing talks with the U.S. fell through.
Last year, Bulgaria's request for proposals for delivery of up to 16 jets to replace the ageing fleet of Russian-made combat aircraft attracted offers from the U.S., Sweden and Italy. The U.S. offered to supply new F-16 or F-18 jets, Saab offered to supply new Gripen C/D fighters, while Italy offered used Eurofighter aircraft.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)