The Greek ambassador to our country His Excellency Alexios Marios Liberopolous gave an interview to Desislava Banova – Plevnelieva. Here are some of his answers to the most important questions for us, including the one about border traffic.
“I have discussed the problem with the two authorities – both in my country and in Bulgaria. This is a complicated issue until Bulgaria enters Schengen by land. Nevertheless, measures have been taken, such as the single point of the “Kulata-Promahonas”, for to ease up and be a bit faster, especially in July and August when the queues are long and more people are traveling to and from Greece.
There is more to do of course. We try to increase our staff during the Easter holidays and the months of June to September so that it is a little faster and easier.
Of course, when there are incidents like the one in Hanioti, Halkidiki a month ago, where in an establishment – Bulgarian property – two groups of Bulgarians fought and shots were fired – this is not good for the image and does not help to reduce border checks . But in general, we are doing our best to ease it until Schengen offers us the solution.
There is a draft law almost ready to be tabled in Parliament. It will impose much stricter penalties for offenders. It’s true, we have a lot of road accidents – over 600 in 2023 if I remember correctly.
Deaths are unthinkable – people lose their lives on the road, on the street. We need to do something aggravating so that people realize that it is very important to wear a helmet when on a motorcycle, that it is important not to run a red light. It is so important so that people don’t die for no reason.
Until the end of 2022, if I am not mistaken, Greek direct foreign investments in Bulgaria reached 3 billion euros, now they are already 3 and a half, so the trend is upward. The two big problems facing Greek investors are the lack of specialized officials – that’s a big problem – and the other is the slow judicial system. There are big delays there.
If there is any problem, it should be solved quickly. We are talking about business and big investments after all, so it should be more efficient for both sides – both the investor and the country in which the investment is made.
We see from real life that for the last three years we will have, sorry, I say “we”, I just feel Bulgarian, the seventh election in a row in October. It is a pity for the country because it cannot plan ahead. You can’t even have a medium-term plan to get the projects moving. It’s a problem and it’s a shame for the country because it’s missing out on a lot of opportunities and funds, unfortunately.
On the other hand, a system that could have a bonus for the first party in the election, or something similar, would make it easier to form a government so that there is a stable medium-long-term government that does not change every three to six months .
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