Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic vowed to increase defense spending to upgrade the military, including through the possible purchase of French warplanes and providing “competitive” wages for elite units.
(Bloomberg) — Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic vowed to increase defense spending to upgrade the military, including through the possible purchase of French warplanes and providing “competitive” wages for elite units.
The Balkan nation may spend an additional €700 million ($748 million) this year on top of the defense budget set at nearly $1.5 billion, Vucic said at the IDEX 2023 arms fair in Abu Dhabi. The funds will be channeled toward upgrading tanks, adding 200 armored vehicles, combat drones and attracting recruits to elite units, he said.
A deal to secure Rafale aircraft from France’s Dassault Aviation SA may cost another €3 billion if talks with the maker are successful, he said. Last April, the president said Serbia, which has traditionally depended on Russian military aircraft and technology, may purchase at least 12 Rafales.
“Our military must be much, much stronger,” Vucic said Monday in a live televised broadcast. “It’s important for Serbia’s survival, we need strong deterrents.”
As other European countries are expanding their military budgets, “governments are spending like drunken millionaires” on defense, he said.
Still, the price tag may be steep for a country that remains outside major defensive alliances and insists on military neutrality even as it’s almost entirely surrounded by NATO members. The nation is also an outlier in Europe by refusing to impose sanctions against Russia, though as a candidate for European Union membership it condemned Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
Vucic said Serbia’s public debt will remain under 56% of gross domestic product despite the soaring costs. He pledged “competitive” net wages of at least $2,200 a month for men and women who join the Serbian Army’s special units. The average net monthly salary in Serbia is about $700, according to the statistics service.
Serbia has relied on Russian-made MiG jets for air defense, but buying spare parts for them has become almost impossible since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, Vucic said.
“You can import almost nothing from Russia now, or almost nothing that has a military purpose,” Vucic said. “Not because of the Russians,” he said without elaborating.
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