Banožić: Croatia will acquire French anti-aircraft systems

Fifteen defense ministers from NATO member states signed a letter of intent in Brussels on Thursday regarding the joint procurement of anti-aircraft defense systems. The Croatian Defense Minister said that for now Croatia has not joined the joint acquisition because it has already been in bilateral talks for the procurement of French systems.

The project, which is being led by Germany, will coordinate the procurement to quickly fill the existing holes in terms of air defenses. The remaining 14 countries involved are Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and the United Kingdom, all of which are NATO members, while Finland, whose application for NATO membership is pending, is also taking part.

Croatian Defense Minister Mario Banožić said that Croatia had discussed the issue with Germany, but said that joining the joint procurement was delayed because Croatia has already been in talks with Paris on acquiring a French short-range anti-aircraft defense system.

"After the drone crash in Zagreb in March of this year, we made anti-aircraft defense a priority, above all short-range systems, and through bilateral talks with France we have already secured material resources at the level of one battalion, and our goal is to secure five battalions in a very short period of time," Banožić told reporters after the meeting of NATO defense ministers.

"With that, we automatically open the story of the medium and long range systems, and I am sure that we will finish that story very successfully. We referred to this in our talks with Germany and now we are waiting to see what exactly they will procure and how well we will be able to fit our two systems together," Banožić added.

The minister added that Croatia and France started bilateral talks back in March, and that this German initiative has only been discussed over the last few weeks.

Minister Banožić declined to go into the details of which systems Croatia is acquiring: "I've given you the country of origin, but we don't go public with the details."

He added however, that it is not too late for Croatia to join the German initiative when it is seen whether these long-range systems will be compatible with the agreed to short and medium-range systems.

Source: HRT