Bulgaria's parliament approves five more IRIS-T air defence systems, total €1.1 billion
Lawmakers in Sofia voted 175-7 to buy five more German air defence systems, with only the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party opposed. The deal will be financed through the EU's SAFE loan instrument.
Archive image · Photo: Air Command West of the UAF / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Bulgaria's parliament on Thursday approved the purchase of five more IRIS-T SLM air defence systems from Germany. The Sofia Globe reported that 175 lawmakers voted in favour and 7 against. According to the BTA news agency, every parliamentary group except the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party backed the decision. The cabinet had approved the draft agreement with Germany a day earlier.
The two stages of the project, the one system already ordered and the five new ones, are worth 1,106,466,933 euros. They will be financed through the EU's SAFE loan instrument. BTA said the price of the first system falls slightly to 180.6 million euros because a sensor is being replaced with other equipment, which also shortens delivery times. The deal requires an annex to the supply contract with Diehl Defence, and parliament must still ratify the agreement.
Defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov called the project a strategic investment in national security, the Eurocom news site reported. According to the same report, Vazrazhdane criticised the price and questioned how well the systems would work against mass drone attacks. Recent drone strikes on ships off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast have drawn attention to the country's air defences.