First Rafale aircraft to be delivered to Serbia in 2028 – It is now known when all French planes worth EUR 2.7 billion are to arrive

The agreement on the purchase of 12 fighter jets, worth EUR 2.7 billion, has overshadowed all the other agreements signed on the first day of the visit of the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. The first Rafale aircraft will be delivered to Serbia in 2028, and the remaining ones within less than two years from then, Eric Trappier, the CEO of Dassault Aviation, said for Bloomberg in Belgrade.

According to Bloomberg, this way, Serbia is strengthening its bonds with the key members of the European Union and reorienting its military commissions from its traditional partner Russia.

Purchasing state-of-the-art military aircraft is not the same as purchasing a cheap toy. The agreed sum is slightly under 5% of Serbia’s GDP. The signed agreement will most probably be the most expensive individual agreement on the purchase of an armed system and its side elements in the history of the Serbian Armed Forces, financially speaking. Still, the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, stated upon signing the agreement that it would not affect the country’s public debt.

The first installment is EUR 421 million and, in 2024 and 2025, Serbia will pay 15% from the budget each year, said Vucic.

Mihailo Gajic, the president of Libek, who has done an economic analysis of the purchase of the Rafale aircraft, estimates for Bloomberg Adria that Serbia has the money to finance that purchase.

According to him, 5% of the GDP split over ten years is not something that Serbia can’t afford. It is not something that will sink the public finances either.

– However, the question is whether those aircraft are necessary, considering the political and security surroundings that we are located in and our level of economic development. Perhaps we could have bought those aircraft later and used the money for some other infrastructure that we need at the moment – believes Gajic.

Now that the purchase has already been agreed, he says, what works in Serbia’s favor is that the overall public debt is around 50% of the GDP, so, relatively low by European standards and something that our economy can finance.

The agreement was finalized only several hours before Macron landed, because the French had requested “certain guarantees” from Serbia, Vucic said for RTS ahead of the visit of the French president. The price was not the main obstacle.

While signing the agreement, Macron said that it was an historic agreement and a strategic change that would contribute to peace in Europe and that it was “a big change” and an opportunity for regional integration, because Greece and Croatia were in the “Rafale club” as well.

Predsedništvo Republike Srbije

Dassault Aviation

Libek

president of Serbia

Aleksandar Vučić

Eric Trappier

Emmanuel Macron

Mihailo Gajić

Rafale aircraft

purchase of Rafale aircraft

fighter jets