Lieutenant-General Simeon Simeonov will be appointed as Bulgaria's new defence commander after the Government approved his nomination at its weekly session on June 25 2009.

President Georgi Purvanov is expected to sign the decree within a few days. Vice-Admiral Minko Kavaldjiev will be Deputy Defence Commander.

The purchase of new fighter planes and helicopter repairs is at the top of the army agenda.

According to the recently adopted Defence Act, the post of army chief of staff will be replaced by the post of commander of defence.

The appointment follows the adoption of a new Defence Act at the end of April 2009. The bill was promulgated by Purvanov on May 7 2009 amid his concerns that it increased political control over the army at the expense of civil control.

The army's chief of staff is replaced by a commander of Bulgarian defence who will be appointed by the president at the request of the Government.

The new act limits to some extent Purvanov's powers as commander-in-chief by strengthening the powers of the Defence Ministry. It also introduces a so-called integration model of command in Bulgaria's armed forces.

The latter means an integration of the current political and military command into one structure within the Defence Ministry. This structure includes Major-General Atanas Samandov, General Ivan Dobrev, Brigadier-General Plamen Manoushev and General Konstantin Popov.

Lieutenant-General Simeon Simeonov, 54, was born in the city of Plovdiv. He is a graduate of the Bulgarian Air Force Academy Georgi Benkovski, of Russia's elite Gagarin Military Academy and of Bundeswehr Command and Staff Academy in Germany.

He started his career as a fighter pilot in 1979 and has gone through all the chain of command of Bulgarian Air Forces. He served twice as commander of Graf Ignatiev air base, near the city of Plovdiv, and has been commander of Bulgaria's Air Force since May 7 2005. Before that, Simeonov had been chief of staff of NATO Joint Training Centre in Poland.