NEWS

Vice President Margarita Popova, at a meeting with students in Paris, launches idea of a ‘global Bulgarian student community’

Vice President Margarita Popova, at a meeting with Bulgarian students in Paris in the French capital late last night, launched the idea of creating a “global Bulgarian student community”.

The Vice President has initiated a meeting of representatives of the Bulgarian student communities around the world, to be dedicated to public policy on Bulgarians abroad. The forum, which is expected to take place in Brussels in late October or early November this year, is intended to contribute to the development of an updated strategy for Bulgarians Abroad. For such a discussion to be successful, it is necessary for Bulgarian student communities themselves to be involved, she said. The goal, she says, is to help the executive to identify the efforts of young people abroad to return to Bulgaria and to work actively for their country.

Vice President Popova urged young people to work together, to create common projects and to defend them, because only in this way would they be successful.

The students questioned the Vice President concerning the possibilities for starting a business in Bulgaria. They called for a reduction in the time needed to register newly-established small and medium enterprises, an improvement to the environment for entrepreneurship and for facilitation of administrative procedures.

Vice President Popova said that e-government was a crucial precondition for improving the environment for businesses and citizens in Bulgaria, and confirmed the commitment of the Presidency to monitor the process closely. But it would take years, require significant financial resources and a clear responsibility, she said. The Vice President said for effective e-governance, it is essential to have a developed central government structure, and responsibility for e-government should be borne personally.

At the meeting with representatives of the Bulgarian student community in Paris, the need to increase spending on education in Bulgaria was emphasised. In response, Vice President Margarita Popova noted that in order to have access to more funding, scientific institutions in Bulgaria have to create quality and competitive projects and defend them successfully. Since 2009, more has been spent on education and science in Bulgaria than in previous years and this is the right direction. It is essential to have good quality projects to be financed, the Vice President said.

The Presidential institution will continue to support as a key priority integration between young people and business, Vice President Popova said. Success is not possible without such co-operation and unity among students, she said, and urged them to expand contacts with each other. Students must jointly develop projects together and to seek support for them in Bulgaria from Bulgarian institutions, the Vice President said.

At Vice President Popova’s meeting with the student community in the French capital, it became clear that among the main problems of Bulgarians educated abroad were the procedures for the legalisation of diplomas as well as opportunities for experience and work in Bulgaria.