Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Bulgaria has the lowest defense spending compared to its neighbors

Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov
Photo: BTA

Bulgaria will continue to help Ukraine in line with the decision of the National Assembly, Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov told bTV. "We will continue to support Ukraine as we have done so far. What we have done is based on the decisions of the National Assembly of 2022 and 2023", Minister Zapryanov said further.

The shortage of soldiers has increased from 25% to 30%. The shortage of Land Forces officers is 34%, Atanas Zapryanov said. He emphasized that increasing military salaries will not burden the state budget, where 2.5% of the country's GDP is earmarked for defense. According to Minister Zaptryanov, Bulgaria spends the least on defense compared to its neighbors. In his words, Romania and Greece spend 3% of their GDP on defence, while Turkiye spends 4% of its GDP on defense. Even Serbia spends more, Minister Zapryanov said.




Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Within the space of 1 month, Bulgaria is mentioned 7 times as a country connected with dangerous food

In September, Bulgaria was mentioned as a country connected with dangerous food 7 times, indicate data of the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF), BNR’s Vesselina Milanova reports. Over the same period this country has reported..

published on 10/21/25 3:09 PM
PM Rosen Zhelyazkov

Cabinet allocates 15,000 leva to be paid out to heirs of people who lost their lives in the floods

The legal heirs of the people who lost their lives during the flooding in the region of Burgas at the beginning of October will receive 15,000 leva (EUR 7,670), the government has decided, BGNES reports. The 60,000 leva (EUR 30,679) needed has been..

published on 10/21/25 2:58 PM
Tzvetan Spassov, Smilen Valov and Dimitar Kolarov

More and more Bulgarians living abroad want to return to their country

The tendency of Bulgarians returning from abroad is permanent. This became apparent during the forum “Europe is with me”, organized by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy’s Human Resources Development Programme, the Bulgarian news agency BTA..

published on 10/21/25 2:31 PM