Tue, May 22 2012
Bulgaria would buy two Gowind corvettes, made by French defence firm Armaris, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said on July 4, after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Dnevnik daily reported, quoting Bulgarian news agency BTA.
Stanishev, who is in Paris on a two-day working trip, is also scheduled to sign a memorandum of strategic co-operation, which he said would become the framework for the development of relations between the two countries.
Armaris was picked as the winner in a public procurement tender for four modern warships in 2005, but since then the process has been frozen, with Bulgarian authorities repeatedly saying that the country could not afford the purchase.
An attempt to resurrect the deal was made in October 2007, when Sarkozy visited Bulgaria, but at that point Bulgaria once again declined to exercise the option.
The haste with which Bulgaria has now decided to buy two ships has given rise to speculation that the Government was attempting to secure the good will of France, which took over the rotating presidency of the European Union on July 1, in light of the interim report the European Commission is due to publish on July 23. The report is expected to be highly critical of Bulgaria's efforts to fight organised crime and corruption.
Bulgaria contemplates the purchase of two new minesweepers, amidst the French Armaris corvette deal which has dragged on for years.
The funding is provided under the foreign military sales programme of the US army's Program Executive Office of Simulation, Training and Instrumentation.
The UK nationals were arrested after throwing beer bottles at people after being refused entry to a restaurant that had closed for the night.
Restoration and development projects include Madara Horseman, Arbanassi fortress, Magura cave.
Simeon Saxe-Coburg and his spouse Margarita opened a new heating and insulation system at the Tsar Ferdinand Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases in Iskrets, a project implemented thanks to the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Sofia and the Nando Peretti Foundation.
According to the law's provisions, the commission will have the power to investigate individuals without prior notification and would not require a criminal conviction in order to launch an investigation.