Parliament approved the purchase of eight more US F-16 fighter jets of the latest Block 70/72 version after a heated political debate on Friday, resulting in the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party and the extreme pro-Russian Revival voting against the deal and accusing the majority of selling out the country’s interests.
Bulgaria, which has an ageing fleet of Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets, purchased eight F-16 fighter jets from the US in 2019 and decided to purchase eight more as its ageing fleet will likely be grounded next year.
If lawmakers do not approve the deal, “we will simply break 110 years of our aviation history,” Acting Defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov told MPs before the vote about Bulgaria being the first country to use aircraft for combat purposes during the First Balkan war of 1912.
“If we stay with only the first contract, we will only have eight fighter jets, but they will not have air-to-ground armament and sufficiently accurate weapons so they can perform their tasks,” Stoyanov added.
The second contract allows us to purchase the armament needed for the first eight Block 70 F-16s as well, he added. The total price of the deal for 16 aircraft, spare parts, armament and pilot training amounts to about $2.5 billion.
The caretaker government is also trying to secure a deal to buy or lease second-hand fighters, with France or Sweden, with Mirage 2000 and Gripen fighters the most likely candidates for the deal.
This year, the Netherlands and Spain have already sent their fighters to Bulgaria to ensure the defence of NATO’s eastern flank. At the moment, there are six Spanish Eurofighters in Bulgaria which perform air policing missions.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
Source: euractiv.com
