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The Bulgarians will buy the Panther helicopters well… without enthusiasm

A Panther helicopter deployed on board the French Navy (credit: French Ministry of Defense / Sirpa Marine)

(BRUSSELS2) The Bulgarian Ministry of Defense should finally confirm the purchase of 6 additional helicopters from Europcopter. A little reluctantly... He had signed a contract for 18 of which 12 Cougars have already been delivered to Bulgaria and 6 Panther Marine helicopters still remained to be delivered. Savings oblige, he wanted to give up the order of three of these six remaining helicopters. But Eurocopter used solid counter-arguments, in the form of the payment of a major penalty. The Minister of Defense, Aniou Anguélov, therefore sided with reason, explaining at the beginning of June, as reported by the national daily sega, « that it is important to finalize the negotiations relating to this contract, which are still ongoing ". Last point of the negotiation between the Bulgarians and the Franco-European manufacturer: the Bulgarian request to strengthen the protection of the Cougars, by installing an anti-ammunition protection system developed by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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