NATO Summit with Decisions, Upheld by Bulgaria
The latest Brussels-held summit of NATO ended in 6 hours, taking preliminary agreed decision, also contracted with Bulgaria. Sofia’s stances on those had been clearly stated a week before the forum to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg by Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense Ekaterina Zaharieva and Krasimir Karakachanov. The gradual increasing of NATO member-states’ military budgets to 2% of the GDP was the main decision and Sofia had committed to this long before the summit, intending to allocate 1/5 of the money to modernization of the army. The curious thing was that on the day of the summit the president and premier began to argue whether a new type of a jet fighter should be bought, or land force equipment instead. The issue is obviously to be tackled. Last year Bulgaria spent some 1.3% of its GDP for defense, on 1.26% in 2015, while in 2017 it will be 1.63%. This growth shows that the 2% goal can be reached, though with efforts.
Bulgaria also shares the decision of NATO to join the coalition against the ISIS. That was what Bulgarian ministers had in mind when one week ago they required more sensible commitment of the Alliance to fight terrorism.
Bulgaria also shows solidarity with the establishment of an anti-terrorist centre for exchange of information. So, we can sum up that after this NATO summit Sofia doesn’t face the dilemma whether, but how to fulfill its decision in the most adequate manner.
BNR