12.12.2021.
President Vučić: I am proud of our armed forces’ progress
After the demonstration of capabilities of part of the Air Force and Air Defence helicopter units and the 63rd Parachute Brigade, which was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Nebojša Stefanović, PhD, and the Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff, General Milan Mojsilović, the President of the Republic and the Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces Aleksandar Vučić congratulated the members of these units on the superbly conducted exercise.
- In extremely bad weather, they managed to conduct the entire exercise perfectly and demonstrate strength. You could see a large number of helicopters, procured this and last year, and I want to say right away that we expect a large number of helicopters to be purchased next year and in 2023. We expect a total of 30 more helicopters, eleven H-145s, four Mi-35s, three Mi-17s plus eleven used Mi-35s that we are buying from an EU member country. So we will be, if I may say so, a helicopter superpower in this region - said President Vučić and congratulated the soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers on successfully performing very complex exercises.President Vučić also said that a meeting was held today with the Minister of Finance and representatives of the defence industry, i.e. representatives of 13 factories and their subsidiaries, as well as three overhaul institutes: Technical Overhaul Institutes "Čačak" and "Kragujevac" and "Moma Stanojlović".
- The important news for you is that we have made a decision to help our defence industry in the first quarter of 2022. We have managed to provide about 145 million euros. In this way we are investing in new production plants, new machines and new equipment, so that we can modernize our factories, ensure a better production process, greater efficiency and profitability, and better products for our armed forces. Accordingly, we have made a decision to order 1,250,000,000 euros worth of equipment, weapons, vehicles, ordnance, ammunition, mines and rockets from the Serbian Defence Industry over the next five years. This will be an additional incentive for the development of our defence industry factories, but also a great contribution to the progress and modernization of our armed forces. This is huge investment, and in addition to everything I have mentioned, we should add what we normally buy from our Russian, French and other partners on the international market, where the investments are really huge - President Vučić pointed out.
He explains that these are our attempts to modernize our armed forces and preserve our defence industry, particularly bearing in mind the deep division in the world, not only between the two blocs, but among several major world players and several regional powers. The President of Serbia emphasizes that our goal is to procure everything that our country needs and to be supplied with all raw materials, all materials, so that in the future we can continue the production of what our armed forces need.
- Our armed forces must strengthen. When I was here five years ago, I also asked Commander Zonić, there were no parachutes then and I felt ashamed, but we have managed to do something in the meantime. Personnel did not have boots or equipment then; however, the situation is quite different nowadays. Salaries are considerably higher. I'm not saying that it can't be better, but it is much better than it used to be. Judging by what you told me, the 63rd Parachute Brigade has no problem with a shortage of personnel, it is a legendary unit and a large number of young men and women want to be members of the 63rd Parachute Brigade. I am very happy because of that. Of course, we still have to invest a lot, but I think that both General Žarković and General Mojsilović, and of course Minister Stefanović, are satisfied with our decision to buy a lot of things - said the President of Serbia.
- That is why we have allocated significant funds for overhaul institutes, i.e. for "Momo Stanojlović" and Technical Overhaul Institutes "Čačak" and "Kragujevac". We have set aside a lot of money, we believe that we will get a good return on that investment through Serbia’s strength, through the security of our citizens, and we believe that the further increase in salaries will completely stop the outflow of personnel from our units and encourage a much larger number of people to join the Serbian Armed Forces.
I am proud of our armed forces, of our service members’ discipline, sense of responsibility, seriousness, but also of the progress our armed forces have made and of everything that we have managed to do over the past few years. But we cannot keep that pace, we must accelerate it dramatically - concluded President Vučić.
The President thanked all the ministers and directors of public companies for their achievements.
- Today we have discussed the price of electricity for our defence industry factories. We will try to keep it to a minimum so that the Electric Power Industry of Serbia is not at a loss, said President Vučić, thanking “Elektromreža”, “Electric Power Industry of Serbia” and “Distribution System Operator”, and all those who helped preserve the system and made sure the factories continued to operate and deliver the best and most modern equipment to our armed forces.
When asked about concrete moves to attract young people to apply for voluntary military service, and the staffing levels of SAF units, the President said that the highest staffing level of units is in the south of Serbia.
- We have the largest number of soldiers in Niš, Toplica, Vranje, Leskovac, Pirot ... Kraljevo also has a decent number of personnel, and the lowest staffing level is always in Belgrade and Vojvodina, due to the highest standard of living. We believe that the outflow of staff was much bigger three, four or five years ago, and now it is much smaller due primarily to the increase in salaries for members of the armed forces - Vučić said.He added that the number of service members will increase as their salaries reach the salary levels of members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
- This year we have a slightly larger number of military volunteers than last year, and we expect that number to be higher next year, and significantly higher in two or three years’ time. Over the last eight years, we have increased the pay for the military by 70 percent. I'm talking about real salaries. At the time of fiscal consolidation it is cumulatively around 7, 7.5-8 percent per year. Those are large pay increases and I believe we can make some extraordinary ones, but whenever we tried to make nonlinear pay increases for non-commissioned officers and soldiers, it always caused dissatisfaction among senior officers, so we will have to do it linearly as we did before, said President Aleksandar Vučić.
He added that the situation is much better nowadays.
- Is it good enough? Well - it never will be. If we say that it is good enough, then we cannot set a new goal for ourselves, and it is important to always raise the bar high and set new goals again and again. One always wants to do more. I wish you journalists could have seen Zonić only five years ago, when I was here as Prime Minister. His every word and facial expression exuded discontent. You would have understood how dissatisfied people were with what they had. Today, I asked him if the situation was better, and he promptly said that it was. We invested a lot in equipment. We are struggling, working and spending a lot of money, said the President of Serbia, adding that the Minister of Finance Mali "had a headache" this morning, but he helped Mali find the 145 million euros, because he has been in "this" for many years and he knows where and how money can be found - said the President.
When asked to comment on today's statement by the Serbian Military Union, President Vučić said that he is the supreme commander to those people, too.
- There are things in that statement that are true and not completely true. They do not dispute the indisputable and are satisfied with the modernization and arming of the Serbian Armed Forces, as you have noticed in that statement. And they say that they are happy because the Serbian Armed Forces are being modernized and provided with better armament, and so on. What they say is that there is an outflow of personnel, that the staffing level is low and so on. If they think any of us is happy because of that, we are not, but the outflow is much smaller and the conditions are incomparably better. If I wanted to be cynical, which I must not be, I would say that the conditions had certainly not been better when I was the Minister of Defence and when I inherited almost non-existent armed forces. I apologize to everyone present, but the armed forces were almost non-existent, in terms of operational capabilities, in every sense of the word, if you will - said President Vučić.
He also noted that we used to have two MiG-21s and one MiG-29, which spent more time being overhauled than being flown.
- Don't get me started on the number of helicopters we had. And the number of "Eagles" that we could fly then compared to what we have today. Not to mention all the other air defence weapons we have today, that we could not even dream of then. Not to mention that we didn't have parachutes for our soldiers, or boots, or uniforms and other things, and I have already told you about the salaries, which have increased by 70 percent since that period. Are things ideal? They are not and in my opinion, they never will be, because I will always strive to achieve better results, greater success, to be proud of our soldiers, whose courage, discipline, sense of responsibility and love for Serbia we are proud of. But our equipment and weapons are incomparably more powerful nowadays than they used to be. They are simply not the same category, not the same class. These armed forces do not even resemble the armed forces then, only their name is the same. They cannot be compared. I am proud of that progress - President Vučić emphasized.
He also spoke about how much money needs to be invested in our armed forces.
- In addition to everything we have mentioned, over the next five years we need to spend not 200 but 250 million euros a year on average purchasing products manufactured by our defence industry alone. Don't forget that we will need at least 500 million euros on average for purchases made from industries other than ours. Those are two military budgets. Just so you know how much is being invested in our armed forces, plus the salary increases which occur every year, and sometimes twice a year - the President of Serbia said.
He added that at this moment, a member of the Serbian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence makes an average of 120,000 dinars a month, with on-call duty and overtime pay and everything else.
- That is the total income. This income is not small, it is a little over 1,000 euros, but the problem is that our soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers are overburdened; they sometimes do the work for two people due to insufficient staffing. That's the problem. And that is why their salaries will continue to grow, but we will have to provide better staffing in the future. I remember that the salary of lance corporals and corporals, i.e. soldiers, was around 37 or 36 thousand dinars. Today it is 58 thousand. Some will say that it is not enough. No, but it is much better than it used to be - President Vučić said.
In the end, the President thanked the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces for everything they have done over the past several days and for everything they do for our country and our people. He also wished the soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers happy upcoming holidays.
PHOTOGALLERY
VIDEOGALLERY12.12.2021
President Vucic's address
12.12.2021
Answers to reporters' questions
12.12.2021
mp4 (50,74 MB)The visit
