Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Investments and Industry Alexander Pulev said in response to a question from Bogdan Bogdanov from "We continue the change" that there is no contract, no framework agreement, but only agreements with the German company "Rheinmetall". The answer is in connection with the agreements from October 2025 by the "Zhelyazkov" Cabinet for the construction of a gunpowder and ammunition plant near Sopot, between "Rheinmetall" and VMZ - Sopot, BTA reports.
Germany is a major foreign economic and trade partner, we want to work effectively with them, but this is a complex process, there are problems with the terrain from a technical point of view, a complete revision of basic parameters is needed, which is forthcoming, the Deputy Prime Minister said.
According to him, the feedback from the legal teams makes it clear that the Bulgarian interest is not protected, we have agreed to everything on the German side, without trying to make certain demands, to reduce certain license payments, to have Bulgarian subcontractors participate in the chain.
Another huge problem is financing, since the resource from the SAVE mechanism turned out to be 10-15 percent, extremely insufficient with a commitment from the Bulgarian side for 400 million euros, during the negotiations 400 million euros of potential capital costs were set budget.
“I don't know what the capital breakdown was in the budget then, but at the moment there is none, it will be difficult to finance, it is necessary to activate new funds from Europe, transform programs, there are more questions than answers, the financing itself will be difficult, we have communicated it to the German side, we will have difficulties, the overall plan must be transformed, which will take a long time“, said the Minister of Economy.
Bogdan Bogdanov stated that two important things become clear from the answer - firstly, something has been signed, but there is no contract, this priority investment is not a real project, but is more marketing and there is no financing. He added that VMZ has a large capacity and can produce ammunition according to NATO standards, regardless of whether with “Rheinmetall“ or with smaller investments.
In response to Bogdanov's question about where these 83 million leva had gone, Minister Pulev added that the company "Iganovo" appeared in a strange way to hire a construction company, to build under a license and according to all the instructions and architectural plans that are part of the requirements of "Rheinmetall".
These 43 million euros were paid to "Rheinmetall", which is a practice when the construction of a plant is outsourced to a third party, but 270 million euros should have appeared for a construction company that would build the plant outside the joint venture and lease it to a joint venture, which is a fundamental difference.