During the official visit to the United States, the Croatian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Damir Krsti\u010devi\u0107 stressed that one of the objectives was to inform the U.S. side of the intented procurement of fighter aircraft and to ask for understanding and support.
\u201cI informed Secretary Mattis on our prospective decision to procure new fighter aircraft. It is my duty as Defence Minister to restore the capability of fighter aircraft.\u00a0 Our talks with the U.S. Secretary convinced us we have his understanding and support\u201c.
In the upcoming week the Croatian Ministry of Defence will send a formal Request for Proposal for the procurement of fighter aircraft to five countries \u2013 Sweden (Gripen\u00a0 JAS-39), the U.S (F 16), South Korea (FA -50) , Israel (F-16) and Greece (F -16).<\/p>\n
The procurement procedure will be administered in a transparent manner, and each segment will be scrutinised in order to reach the best final decision in the interest of the Republic of Croatia.<\/p>\n
Upon the receipt, the proposals will be scrutinised based on the aircraft characteristics and capabilities as well as on three key parameters: the bilateral agreement, the price and the business and economy co-operation deal. Croatia aims to promote co-operation at the country level, as the aircraft procurement is a complex and\u00a0 pluriannual deal and entails strategic partnership.
The criteria regarding the price will be the overall price of the package and the payment modalities.\u00a0 The Republic of Croatia wishes to see the aircraft procurement contract enhance the economic co-operation\u00a0 with the country of choice, and incite its investments into the Croatian economy.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n
The aircraft procurement project will be managed at the Government level, engaging the Ministry of Defence, the Croatian Armed Forces, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy and other relevant state institutions.<\/p>\n
In view of the complexitiy and demanding nature of the project the Ministry of Defence staff analysed the experiences of other NATO nations faced with the need of replacement or modernisation of the combat component, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.<\/p>\n
Depending on the decision timing and the contracting dynamics, the first aircraft is due for delivery by late 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOD to send the Request for Proposal for the procurement of fighter aircraft to five countries \u2013 Sweden the U.S, South Korea, Israel and Greece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n