The army now has the right to shoot down drones in peacetime

The parliament has adopted amendments to the Defence Act. They expand the possibilities for declaring a state of emergency and activating the armed forces. The possibility of using weapons against drones in the protection and defence of military facilities, equipment and ships is also introduced.

With the amendments, in peacetime, the armed forces will perform deterrence tasks in accordance with the plans for operations and the assumed alliance obligations. "Deterrence" is a complex of activities in peacetime to convince a potential aggressor that the negative consequences and losses from aggressive actions would exceed many times the possible benefits for the aggressor, the MPs wrote in the law.

Minister of Defence Atanas Zapryanov rejected the suggestion that the term "deterrence" places the armed forces under direct subordination to NATO and pointed out that national command is preserved until the parliament approves Art. 5 of the NATO Treaty on activation of collective defence.