FRENCH company Eurocopter will deliver 18 helicopters for the Bulgarian armed forces, despite earlier fears of a lack of money to pay for the aircraft.
This was unveiled in a statement on December 6 by Economy and Energy Minister Roumen Ovcharov. He was addressing a seminar in Sofia on offset programmes accompanying military deals.
The French company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space company) has been chosen to supply 12 Cougar and six Panther helicopters worth 360 million euro for the air and marine forces.
There were concerns, however, that the deal might be cut back after a statement by Defence Minister Vesslin Bliznakov, who said on November 24, that Bulgaria would revise some of the priority projects for the modernisation of its armed forces.
Although Bliznakov said this deal would most probably not be downsized, its status might have easily changed after the Government signed a deal with Israeli company Elbit Systems for the modernisation of Bulgaria’s existing fleet of Mi-24 and Mi-17 Soviet-made helicopters. Bulgaria chose Elbit to modernise 18 of its Mi-17 combat and Mi-24 transport helicopters. (Read more on the deal with Elbit on page 8.)
If the state keeps the commitment to buy new helicopters from Eurocopter, this will mean that in a couple of years Bulgaria’s military will have 36 helicopters. The number, according to military experts, is too big for the needs of this country’s armed forces.
There were also fears that some of the funding planned for the Eurocopter deal might be transferred to the project involving Elbit, which would inevitably lead to cutting the number of newly-ordered helicopters.
On December 6, Ovcharov and representatives of Eurcopter cleared the fog by presenting the offset programme they designed for the helicopter deal, in order to compensate the country with accompanying investment for choosing the supplier.
According to Ovcharov, who was leading the Bulgarian working group in the negotiations with Eurocopter, a total of 105 million euro would be invested in the Bulgarian economy, and another 254 million euro in the country’s defence.
Ovcharov and Eurocopter’s senior vice president Luc Barriere said that 1 000 new jobs would be created. They named two projects - building a plant for aluminium products and an investment in “another Bulgarian company”. No further details were provided as both said the information was confidential.
The first helicopters manufactured by Eurocopter are expected to arrive in Bulgaria in August or September next year.
The Eurocopter contract would be funded with a state-guaranteed loan envisaged in the 2006 budget, Ovcharov said. Eurocopter’s Bulgarian representative Nikolai Gigov said the French bank Societe Generale would provide the money.
Meanwhile, political analysts commented that the deal with Eurocopter unveiled a serious controversy between the Economy and Energy Ministry and the military in the face of the Defence Ministry over the offset programme’s details. While Ovcharov insists on giving priority to investment in civilian projects, the military wants more money to be poured into defence, in line with Bulgaria’s commitments to NATO.
Deputy Defence Minister Sonya Yankoulova said on December 6 that the technical parameters of the projects should be prioritised because Bulgarian taxpayers are providing the funding so that their country’s armed forces could have quality equipment.
Ovcharov’s response was that as long as the technical parameters of the army modernisation projects are important, they should be co-ordinated with the project’s funding and the offset programme.
