Nearly 100 Bulgarian firms will share €61.5m to upgrade factories that make defence goods and dual-use products, the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation said. The managing authority will discuss adding money to the budget of the call, because there are many projects on reserve lists.
The money comes from the Competitiveness and Innovation in Enterprises programme, which is run by the Executive Agency "European Funds for Competitiveness" under the ministry. Almost 200 micro, small, medium and large firms applied. The agency will invite the approved firms to sign contracts.
The aim is to help firms improve their industrial capacity to make defence products and dual-use goods. Firms could ask for grants of between €51,129 and €3.6m.
The money can pay for machinery, plant, equipment, specialist software, patents, licences and know-how. It also covers construction and installation work, but only up to 50% of a project's total costs.
Dual-use goods include high-performance computers and microprocessors, radar systems, lidars, encryption software, drones and other unmanned aircraft.
The call for projects closed in mid-April. The budget then was about €70.6m, and the interest shown was more than double that.