Today members of the parliament's Defence Committee will be asking the country's Minister of Defence and the army's Chief of General Staff how this could have possibly happened.

However, the ammunition problem is not new - the supply of ammunition for the Belgian-made automatic rifle F2000S has been decreasing ever since the year 2013.

Reportedly, the Slovenian Army does have enough ammunition for training purposes, even for the Belgian automatic rifles, but the big problem are the army reserve supplies.

Military plans envisage that the army must have enough ammunition supplies for the first 90 days of a war. According to some estimates that is the period in which the normal functioning of logistics can be set up at a time of war. Slovenia has not had those kind of supplies for several years now.

A framework purchasing agreement already signed
The army will not have to wait for its new ammunition that long. A signed framework agreement for the purchase of three million bullets for the Belgian rifles can be found on the government E-ordering website. Each bullet costs around 29 cents, and the supplier has to deliver all the ammunition by the end of March next year.
The question is why the framework agreement for the purchase of ammunition was signed in the middle of this year while the army has had an incomplete amount of reserve supplies for several years now. The army explains that it submitted all the necessary documentation for completing its supplies on time. On the other hand the Ministry of Defence says it is clear that the army documentation was either incomplete or did not even arrive at the ministry on time.

Slovenia's defence sector is to get around 348 million euros this year. Next year's defence budget, if approved, will increase to a little more than 366 milion euros. The defence sector will be looking to get even more funding in 2018 and 2019, when it will also hope to start a long awaited cycle of investment.