site.btaDefence Minister Yanev: "Caretaker Cabinet Has Not Predetermined Anything in Jet Fighters Deal"

Defence Minister Yanev: "Caretaker Cabinet Has Not Predetermined Anything in Jet Fighters Deal"

Sofia, May 2 (BTA) - "The caretaker Cabinet has not predetermined anything in the acquisition of jet fighters for the Bulgarian Air Force," caretaker Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Stefan Yanev said here on Tuesday, replying to a journalist's question. He reacted to strong criticism levelled at the Cabinet for exceeding his mission.

"The Government had two options: either to take into consideration the work of the working group on the fighters issue, the expert opinion and the memorandum drawn up, or to ignore them. In both cases, in line with the procedure provided for by a Council of Ministers decision of 2016, the companies had to submit their tenders by March 15, the tenders had to be evaluated by the end of April and ranked by a memorandum of the expert working group (also known as the jet fighter selection board), after which the Council of Ministers is supposed to adopt a decision on the formation of a new working group to hold negotiations with the selected winner," Yanev explained. He insisted that this memorandum does not predetermine the selection of a winner, nor does it obligate the next government to prefer any of these companies which have submitted three different tenders and in what order to negotiate with them. "We say that the expert group has ranked the tenders from one to three," the Defence Minister said. "The next cabinet will have the final say on whether the fighters will be purchased from Sweden, Portugal or Italy," he added.

On April 26, Yanev said that a working group had concluded that a Swedish company would be the best pick for the purchase of fighters for the Bulgarian Air Force. The media identified the company as Saab and the fighters as Gripen. Portugal was ranked second for used F-16s, and Italy third for used Eurofighter. The investment project envisages spending 1,500 million leva on eight fighter aircraft.