site.btaDefence Budget Fails at Committee Stage, MP Says

The Defence Committee of the National Assembly did not adopt the draft defence budget for 2023, said CC-DB MP Ivaylo Mirchev.

Mirchev explained that most of the MPs voted "against" without giving specific arguments. I suppose one of the reasons was the not large enough percentage of the country's GDP for defence. He added that Bulgaria should reach a defence budget of 2% of GDP, which has not been achieved at of now. He added that the draft budget has allocated money for patrol ships, new armaments, which unfortunately are yet to be implemented in terms of budget, army, "the projects for which money can be allocated".

Mirchev pointed out that at the meeting of the Defence Committee there was no comment on the military aid that Bulgaria will provide to Ukraine after the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He added that the issue was the prerogative of the Council of Ministers. "The aid that will eventually be sent to Ukraine in the so-called second package, equivalent in volume to the first package, is very low - about BGN 20 million", Mirchev said. According to him, Ukraine has bought arms for about BGN 5 billion from Bulgaria since the beginning of the war, and the latter has given an additional BGN 20 million. "That is, these BGN 5 billion have entered the Bulgarian economy, and we have provided aid for BGN 20 million", Mirchev said.

Earlier on Friday, Defence Minister Todor Tagarev said that during his visit to Bulgaria, Zelenskyy provided a list of weapons needed by the Ukrainian army.