>Bulgaria Cancels French Corvettes Deal

>According to Bulgarian news portal novinite, Bulgaria officially declared that it will not buy Gowind 200 corvettes from DCNS.

The Bulgarian Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, said the commitment made by the three-party coalition government for the purchase of the French corvettes is not feasible at the moment because the country’s previous rulers not only did not slate any money in the budget for such splurge.

The French company “Armaris” planned to sell to Bulgaria corvettes, a deal that was blessed by Bulgaria’s former government.

The number of the corvettes and their price kept changing during the negotiations. After joining NATO, Bulgaria was in dire need of warships within NATO standards. Gowind project seemed to be an easy way of purchasing ships of NATO standards. But budget realities forced Bulgaria to buy second hand ships from Belgium for a friction of the cost of the Gowind 200’s.

41 Drazki (ex-BNS Wandelaar), the first frigate Bulgaria has bought, was handed over to the Bulgarian Navy in October 2005 with the second frigate, 42 Gordi (ex-BNS Westdiep ), following in August 2008. The third Wielingen-class frigate 43 Verni and the Flower-class minehunter 32 Tsibar were transffered in February 2009.

Compared with the Gowind 200 class corvettes, Wielingen class frigates lack helicopter capability, stealth design. Probably Gowind corvettes would have newer version of Exocet anti-ship missile (MM40 vs MM38) and more up-to-date electronics and Combat data system software.

But would these be enough to justify the expense? Currently the main missions of Bulgarian navy are:

1) protecting Bulgarian shores and harbors,
2) keeping SLOC’s of Bulgaria open,
3) surveillance missions,
4) maritime interdiction and anti-terror operations such as Active Endeavour and BLACKSEAFOR

Although old and second hand the Wielingen class ships are very well capable of executing these task without any ado.