site.btaState Budget to Ensure Filling of Vacant Posts in Army, Outflow Has Stopped - Defence Minister

The state budget for 2025 will ensure filling of vacant posts, Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov told the parliamentary Defence Committee here on Wednesday. The outflow in the Bulgarian army has stopped, he added. The Committee supported the 2025 State budget bill at the first reading. 

"The instrument - an increase in the salaries of servicepersons - works, but there should be a social package," the Minister said. Preliminary admission to military schools is nearing 70% of the announced places, Zapryanov added. "I think we will fill [the vacancies], this year with this budget, we will take another 1,000; if we have a bigger budget we will take 3,000 in this application period, but we are not in a hurry," the Minister explained, adding that for the first time there are three to five applicants for one place.

On Tuesday, Zapryanov said that he had accepted the proposal of the Chief of Defence. "They will determine which are the priority formations so that we fill them first," he added. 

"Many of our candidates drop out for health reasons - in some places the sick and mentally unstable account for 60% of all candidates," the Minister also said.

A few days ago, the Minister announced that for the first time in many years, the number of those who joined the military service in 2024 was higher than the number of those who left. At the end of January, the basis for determining the basic monthly remuneration for the lowest post of servicepersons in the Ministry of Defence, the structures directly subordinate to the Defence Minister and the Bulgarian Army was set at BGN 2,296.