site.btaBulgarian Armed Forces Capable of Fulfilling their Tasks Despite Hardships - Report

Sofia, August 30 (BTA) - Bulgaria's Council of Ministers Wednesday approved the 2016 Report on the State of Defence and the Armed Forces and moved it to the National Assembly for adoption, the Government Information Service said in a press release. The document covers the present situation of the military aspects of national security and the results of the implementation of defence policy in 2016.

The main conclusion at which the report arrives is that the Bulgarian Armed Forces are capable of carrying out their tasks under the missions arising from the constitutional duties to guarantee the country's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within the framework of NATO collective defence and EU Common Security and Defence Policy. This, however, continues to be implemented accompanied by a number of difficulties related to chronic underfunding, worsening undermanning, and obsolete armament and military equipment in poor condition. For this reason, some tasks are carried out with limitations, the report says.

The principal problems identified in the document concern an insufficient staffing level (the organic personnel is already 20 per cent undermanned, meaning that 6,000 positions are vacant, despite the efforts to recruit and retain trained human resources), an inadequate resourcing of the Armed Forces, and difficulties in maintaining and developing defence capabilities.

The report proposes specific action within the limits of the 2018 budget intended to launch policies addressing the most serious problems of the Armed Forces and systematically attain the objectives of the 2020 Programme.

The radically changed security environment calls for a debate on achieving a sustained political consensus and drawing up a national plan for increasing defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP by 2024, in line with the decisions of the NATO Summit in Wales, the report points out.

Comprehensive measures are envisaged for the implementation of a policy of steady career growth of defence employees and exploring opportunities to give service persons a pay rise and upgrade their social status and the prestige of the military profession.

The report also says that in 2016 the armed forces conducted 258 exercises, concentrated in battalion-size tactical units. Elements and individual service persons participated in 14 overseas NATO, EU and UN missions and operations. Approximately 760 service persons were involved in planned rotations during the year, the report notes.

A total of 100 specialized elements were in a constant state of readiness and carried out 152 disaster response operations, involving 815 service persons and 161 units of equipment. More than 2,700 service persons were deployed at the border with Turkey until the end of 2016 for a joint border protection operation with the Interior Ministry authorities.

Bulgaria continued to implement the Programme for the Development of the Defence Capabilities of the Bulgarian Armed Forces 2020 and the Armed Forces' Development Plan which is based on it, as well as the NATO Capability Targets 2013 Package and the 55 Capability Targets including the training of 50 formations, to which Bulgaria has committed itself.

In 2017, the main efforts will be concentrated on maintaining and developing the capabilities necessary for planning and carrying out operations under the three missions of the Armed Forces, implementing the principal investment projects for modernization, and taking integral action to cope with the undermanning.

An earlier version of the 2016 Annual Report on the State of Defence and the Armed Forces, which was drawn up by the latest caretaker cabinet (January-May 2017), said that the Bulgarian Armed Forces were already only partly capable of fulfilling their tasks under the missions arising from the constitutional duties to guarantee the country's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within the framework of NATO collective defence. It identified underfunding as one of the main reasons for this, specifying that, as a result, the Armed Forces were between 25 and 30 per cent undermanned.

President Rumen Radev, who is also Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, said that this first version of the report was objective, but it was withdrawn for revision and updating at the end of May as the new Government of Boyko Borissov took office and its Defence Minister, Krassimir Karakachanov, expressed disagreement with the main conclusion that the Armed Forces were "only partly capable" of fulfilling their tasks.