Bulgarian Defence Forces Working To Improve Compliance

July 28, 2009 - PRLog -- Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in Europe. The only significant security threats it faces come from organised crime, which is pervasive, and corruption. While Bulgaria has recently been admitted as a member of NATO, the country is not strategically significant in any of the regional tensions or issues. It does, however, lies on the transshipment route for drugs coming out of the Central Asia region and the Caucasus. Bulgaria is therefore significant in the international drug trade and the associated crime, human-trafficking and money laundering operations.

We expect the Bulgarian economy to be in for a rough ride this year as the private sector starts to account for its excessive borrowing and consumption in previous years, with consumer and investment spending necessarily set to take a severe hit. We forecast an economic contraction of 3.1% this year followed up by a decline of 1.5% in 2010, as demand remains weighed down by the lack of external credit availability, and as the deleveraging process continues to gain ground.

During the Cold War, Bulgaria was a member of the Warsaw Pact. It maintained a large, mostly conscript, army and had a defence industry that earned several hundred million dollars annually from sales to other Warsaw Pact countries. (This was a significant amount, given the small size of Bulgaria's economy). Up to 90% of military production was exported.

The demands placed on the military as a NATO member are very different. The current need is for a much smaller and far more professional force, capable of operating in peacekeeping and humanitarian roles. The need to inter-operate with other NATO forces means that the Ministry of Defence is working to standardise and codify its military products to comply with NATO standards. Bulgarian forces have worked to improve their compliance with these standards by recent military acquisitions, such as a pair of Belgian frigates, and armoured security vehicles from the USA.

The Bulgarian defence industry recently stated that Bulgaria is regaining its position in the international arms markets. Deputy Economy and Energy Minister Yavor Koyumdjiev said that last year Bulgaria exported ‘special production,' valued at EUR180mn. ‘The country has retained positions in its traditional markets in Northern Africa and Europe, and has also succeeded in placing products in the USA,' according to the Minister.

Aside from concerns over economic growth and standards of living, we believe that the lack of progress in eradicating corruption will remain top of the list of the government's perceived policy failures. While endemic corruption was the central tenet of the report, the Commission did note encouraging developments since Bulgaria joined the EU on January 1 2007. The establishment of a State Agency for National Security – charged with fighting corruption and organised crime – was praised, as was the appointment of a new deputy prime minister to oversee the collection and distribution of EU funds.

This quarter, we have introduced a significant new aspect to BMI's defence reports, which is the City Terrorism Rating (CTR). This assesses the risk of a terrorist attack. The CTR takes into account the overall BMI Terrorism Rating for the country in question. It also incorporates the 'prevalence' of terrorism, which recognises the frequency of attacks and whether the city is a target for terrorists. The CTR also recognises the 'threat' of terrorism in terms of the likely numbers of victims and the ability of groups to launch sustained campaigns. In Bulgaria we assess the CTR for Sofia as 87.5. While not as high as cities such as Riga or Baku, this is substantially higher than many cities in the Central and Eastern European and Central Asian region.

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