Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov announced to Bulgarian journalists in Brussels that last night he held a meeting with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and the Chancellor of Austria Karl Nehammer, as part of the negotiations for the admission of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area.
We explained that land borders are important to us. We made a suggestion on how it could be approached. Negotiations continue and will last until the last day. Let’s see what will be the reaction of the Austrian side to what we proposed, said Denkov.
He also commented on Hungary’s decision to block EUR 50 billion in aid to Ukraine. Let’s look on the bright side. The other 26 are united around a precise account, with clear priorities, with clear sums, so that only the Hungarian Prime Minister really remains. Therefore, the decision was that we continue with these calculations at the moment. In January, we will hold an extraordinary meeting to try to get his consent as well, noted the Prime Minister.
In response to a question about the captured Bulgarian ship “Ruen” near Yemen, Nikolay Denkov stated: “At the moment there are institutions that are involved. Usually there needs to be more silence in order to conduct negotiations. There is still some uncertainty as to how things will develop through the next 1-2 days. We are monitoring the case, but at the moment there is no need for additional efforts”.
They captured a Bulgarian ship near Yemen
Asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words that after the Russo-Turkish wars the entire Black Sea coast became Russian, the prime minister pointed out: “If we go back a few years, you will see a series of statements that betray imperial ambitions. These imperial ambitions include a lot of the current countries, including some of the countries of the European Union. So, in a sense, nothing new, but on the other hand, we have to be careful with these statements, because before they seemed like statements, but then some of them turned into a plan for action. We need to be careful about Russia’s next actions and be prepared for them. For a long time, many people have been saying that we need to be careful in this regard. I hope that the Bulgarian society will finally start to hear that there is a need of attention in this direction”.
“We are preparing by integrating into NATO structures and rearming the Bulgarian army, including joint exercises with other NATO troops, so that we will be ready if something happens,” said Denkov in response to a question about whether we are prepared for an unfavorable scenario in Cherno sea given the large number of Russian warships in it.
According to him, Bulgaria’s position on the war in the Middle East is that all forms of terrorism are unacceptable. The attack by Hamas was extremely brutal. Everything must be done to eliminate the possibility of it happening again in the future. The big question is how. The European Union advocates the idea of two states, political representation of the Palestinians is sought through the Palestinian Authority. There are various options for the future, the Prime Minister said, specifying that for the time being our country has not discussed sanctions against Israel.
Nikolay Denkov also commented on the blockage of the parliament’s work in the last two days. It is very important that the Bulgarian parliament continues to work – the budget, the Constitution and more laws to be adopted are extremely important topics. I assume that next week the work of the parliament will be accelerated to make up for what it lost yesterday and today, the prime minister said.
2023-12-15 10:07:30
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