Appointed by the President with the primary task to prepare the early parliamentary elections on October 5, the caretaker government of Bulgaria announced that an important priority was also getting ready for the NATO summit in Wales on September 4 and 5. Days before the meeting, the Ministry of Defense published a document entitled "Vision 2020: Bulgaria in NATO and European Defense." Based on this document a national program will be created for the participation in the Atlantic Alliance and the European defense, which will be discussed by the next Parliament. It is clear that the Vision 2020 document will be the basis for the Bulgarian position during the forthcoming NATO summit.

"Vision 2020" defines Russia and its policies as a threat to national security. According to the caretaker government, because of its location in Southeast Europe and the Black Sea region, today Bulgaria is one of the areas of the Euro-Atlantic community with the highest risk and in the long term the situation will not be improving. The cabinet sees the crisis in Ukraine, located in the northeast, as the result of Russia’s ambitions to regain influence in the former Soviet space. At the same time it believes that strengthening the capacity of Russia's conventional military provokes the defense capabilities of Bulgaria. The active promotion of Russian politics inside the country, especially through Bulgarian politicians and businessmen, as well as media, is defined by Vision 2020 as information war, undermining the integrity of state institutions and directly attacking national democratic values and spirit. A major risk for Bulgaria is said to be a new hybrid kind of warfare, combining conventional methods with guerrilla, cyber warfare and information warfare, as well as activities contrary to international law. National defense capabilities, according to the Vision are further reduced by the aggravation of relations between Moscow on the one side and Kiev, the EU, the USA and NATO on the other, which is actually a huge challenge to national economic and energy security. The document reads that processes in the Middle East and North Africa also pose a threat to national security and does not rule out the possibility for criminals or members of terrorist organizations to take advantage of regional instability and intensive migration flows and enter Bulgaria. Potential risks coming from western direction are said to be the delay of the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Western Balkans and the existing ethnic and religious intolerance there.  

 
Keeping in mind the defined threats, the government believes that money for defense should be invested in rearmament, because at the moment this country lacks the military resources to ensure effective security at the backdrop of rapidly changing challenges of today's security environment. Vision 2020 reads that in the period 2015 - 2020 military budget should rise gradually by 0.1% of GDP, so in 2020 it reaches 2.0%.

Vision 2020 has not been discussed by the government yet, but it has already provoked vigorous comments in media, some of them being critical. “Minister Shalamanov wants rockets because of Russia”, wrote the Trud Daily. "Dnevnik" wrote that the Ministry of Defense officially announced Russia was as a threat to the security of Bulgaria.

English: Alexander Markov