site.btaBulgaria's Defence Industry is Competitive with Other EU Countries, EC Official Says

Bulgaria should not be underestimated because it has a potential and participates successfully and on an equal footing with the other competitive countries of the EU, Krastio Preslavsky from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space, said on Tuesday. He took part in a national information day on the European Defence Fund (EDF) at Sofia Tech Park. The forum discussed opportunities for Bulgarian companies to apply for the programme and the conditions for submitting project proposals. 

"We are trying to attract small and medium-sized enterprises that have never dared to go into the defence industry before," he said, adding that a couple of generations ago, innovations in the military sector were developed for defence purposes and gradually entered the civilian sector, while now it is the other way round.

He said that European activity towards support for the defence industry is relatively new - in 2015-2016 it was taboo.

Dilyana Karageorgieva, Head of the NATO and Security Economics Unit at the Ministry of Economy and Industry and the EDF National Focal Point, explained who can apply for EDF funding.

She stressed that only consortia made up of at least three organisations from three EU Member States or Norway can apply. The second condition is that the participants must be legal entities whose resources and management structures are established in the EU or Norway and are not controlled by third country entities.