NEWS

Bulgaria and Italy Will Work to Adopt a New Approach to Coping with the Migration Pressure on the EU

Italy is ready to grant our country free of charge software to fight with financial crimes, corruption and organized crime, President Sergio Mattarella told Head of State Rumen Radev

The Dublin Regulation places the countries forming the external EU borders such as Bulgaria, Italy, Greece and Malta at a disadvantage and therefore efforts  should be pooled to ensure a new system which should take into account these countries’ specific characteristics and problems.  This is what President Rumen Radev told journalists in Rome after holding a meeting with the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella. The Bulgarian Head of State is on a working visit to Italy at the invitation of his counterpart President Mattarella.

Bulgaria and Italy will pool efforts to adopt a new approach to coping with the migration pressure on Europe which should take into account the need to show sympathy to the countries along the external EU borders. It should also change the unfair decision whereby the immigrants are subject to readmission to the countries they were first registered, it emerged from President Radev’s words. President Mattarella voiced his support for Bulgaria’s Schengen accession and also Italy’s position that a distinction should be drawn between the refugees escaping from the military conflicts and the economic immigrants.

In the Bulgarian Head of State’s words, a lot of countries from Central, Eastern and Northern Europe realize the need for amending the Dublin Regulation and they voice their stance for showing solidarity and a sharing responsibility in protecting the external EU borders.

At the meeting President Mattarella expressed Italy’s readiness to grant Bulgaria free of charge software to track down suspicious financial operations and thus to prevent financial crimes and also to provide a complete model for its implementation. “Italy is ready to train Bulgarian experts. This software has been implemented in a couple of countries already and tangible results have already been produced,” President Radev said. The Head of State emphasized that he will submit a proposal to the Bulgarian government and the judiciary whereby an expert group is soon formed, which should get acquainted on-site with the Italian expertise and the opportunity for introducing this anti-corruption model in Bulgaria as well.

Presidents Radev and Mattarella also commented the opportunities for alleviating the administrative procedures the business is facing and for a subsequent increase of bilateral trade, which was worth 4.2 billion euros in 2016.  Italy has invested more than 1.5 billion euros in the Bulgarian economy in the past 20 years.

The diversification of the sources and routes of energy supplies to Europe, the cooperation between Bulgaria and Italy in the spheres of defense, culture and others, were also discussed at the meeting.

In reply to a journalist’s question, whether the forthcoming Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU is endangered, President Radev said that this depends only on our actions or inactions.   “I strongly hope that in the time left we will turn our backs on all scandals so that we can make a clear and transparent decision should there be any deviations and thus step on a clean foundation and go ahead,” the Head of State said.