According to the Czech Ministry of Defense (MoD) the country’s defense budget for 2020 will be set at 75.5 billion Koruna (€2.9 billion), which means that it will increase by 13% in comparison to 2019. Planned modernization and investment programmes will consume almost a quarter of the 2020 defense budget, which would correspond to over 18 billion Koruna (€712 million).
The Czech Republic’s defense budget will exceed 75 billion Koruna in 2020. The country prioritizes further modernization and strengthening of the armed forces / Picture: Michal Jarocki
‘The goal is to modernize and strengthen our Army’, said the Czech Minister of Defense, Lubomir Metnar. He reminded that the Czech government had approved in recent years the ‘Long term perspective for defence 2030’ document. “Modernization of the army is my absolute priority. We are doing our utmost to ensure that our troops have the best equipment available’, said minister Metnar.
The ministry remined that in 2019 it signed contracts and framework agreements for military equipment worth 43 billion Koruna (€1,7 billion). Major contracts included the acquisition of 62 Titus 6×6 armoured vehicles from Nexter Systems, more than 70 Tatra trucks, 7 light reconnaissance vehicles, eight ELM-2084 ‘Iron Dome’ Multi-Mission Radars (MMR, Czech Republic acquires Israeli radar systems, 2019-12-08) and a dozen of US-manufactured helicopters (four AH-1Z Viper attack and eight UH-1Y Venom multirole, Czech Republic procures helicopters from Bell, 2019-12-16).
Modernization of the Czech Armed Forces will continue at the same pace in 2020. The country’s MoD plans to conclude several other strategic projects, which might have an essential impact on the country’s security and prosperity, such as the long awaited procurement of 210 tracked infantry fighting vehicles (Eurosatory 2018: CV90 MkIV Premiere, 2018-06-13).
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