Procurement ready for medium-range air defense for Estonia, Latvia

• Published date: 28 July 2022
• Publication title: LETA

TALLINN, July 28 (LETA--BNS) - The Estonian Center for Defense Investment (RKIK) has essentially made all the necessary preparations for the acquisition of medium-range air defense with Latvia and the corresponding procurement could even be announced as early as tomorrow but the Defense Ministry's initial plan to submit a concrete recommendation to the government this week is to be postponed and the decision on funding may not materialize until during the state budget strategy deliberations this fall, Postimees reports.

In March this year, Estonia's previous government decided to allocate 600 million euros to national defense and internal security, and agreed that Estonia is to acquire medium-range air defense capability by 2025 at the latest for an estimated cost of 350 million euros. The ministry had four months to draw up a plan and present the possible purchase options to the government.

t the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June, the then Estonian minister of defense Kalle Laanet and his Latvian counterpart Artis Pabriks agreed that medium-range air defense is to be acquired jointly and that the joint procurement will be led by RKIK. A joint purchase will enable to cross-use the systems and to swap or borrow air defense components. In four months, RKIK has essentially made all the necessary preparations for the procurement and is ready to announce it tomorrow, if necessary. In order to do this, the government must officially allocate funds for this purpose, however.

"All procurement materials have been prepared, we've coordinated them with the Latvian representatives and now we await a funding decision from the government of the republic to see if and in which form the project will proceed," Priit Soosaar, head of the procurement and category manager for communications and radars at the Center for Defense Investment, said.

Meanwhile, a change of the government occurred in Estonia. The agreement of the new ruling coalition includes several support measures and the state's standing costs are to grow by hundreds of millions. What the agreement does not include, however, is a concrete statement that funds are to be allocated for medium-range air defense and that the capability is to be developed...