The Bulgarian Army is to have a new command structure following the proposed amendments to the Defence Act intended to reform the country’s armed forces.

The 370m-leva ($246m) reforms to the army over the next four years will include a new military geographical service, stationary communication and information system departments and a major downsizing.

The reforms also include reducing the army personnel from the current 44,100 to 26,100 by 2014 and a redundancy compensation costing 115.2m leva ($76.8m), according to the Sofia Echo.

The new command structure in the Joint Operational Command will be replaced by the Joint Forces Command, which along with the three armed forces will be functionally integrated into a single operational mechanism.