site.btaBulgarian MEPs on Postponement of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Debate

Bulgarian MEPs on Postponement of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Debate

Brussels, June 11 (BTA Special Correspondent Leda Avramova) -
Bulgarian MEPs commented at a seminar for journalists Wednesday
on the postponement of the European Parliament's Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) debate and vote.  

Andrey Kovachev (GERB/EPP) said that the vote was officially
postponed for procedural reasons (the large number of proposed
amendments to the text) but that the actual reason is the lack
of a common position of the Party of European Socialists. He
commented that the TTIP debate is populist - there are no real
problems with the agreement itself, because there currently are
many bilateral agreements, including between Bulgaria and the
US, which regulate trade relations and the new mechanism is no
worse than these. The reason for the debate's sharp tone is
purely ideological and the only problem with TTIP is political,
he argued. The EPP group has a uniform position in favour of the
 agreement, Kovachev added.

According to Iliana Yotova (Bulgarian Socialist Party/S&D), in
Bulgaria there is lack of understanding of TTIP's significance,
as well as an actual debate on this topic.

Momchil Nekov (Bulgarian Socialist Party/S&D) said that a key
role for Bulgaria's vote on TTIP is the lifting of the US visa
regime, which should be negotiated for all EU citizens. At
present, the citizens of five Member States need a visa to
travel to the United States. The Investor-to-State Dispute
Settlement mechanism within TTIP is the most important question
on which there is no clarity and which is of greatest importance
 for the S&D group's vote, he noted. According to him, the TTIP
debates will continue also in 2016.

According to the Bulgarian MEPs, the conclusion of the TTIP
would be to the potential benefit of Bulgaria's small and
medium-sized enterprises specializing in the production of
vegetables, honey, oil-bearing cultures and bioproduction, as
well as in the IT sector.

The Bulgarian MEPs also discussed the issue of handling refugee
and migrant waves.

Yotova said that this is a key topic for the Luxembourg
Presidency of the EU Council, which starts in July. In her
words, Bulgaria's current official position on refugee matters
is very good: balanced and taking the country's interests into
view. "We insist on a differentiated attitude towards the
refugees and migrants, and the application of a solidarity
principle for redistribution among all EU Member States," she
explained.

Svetoslav Malinov (Democrats for Strong Bulgaria/EPP) described
as progress the fact that European institutions talks about a
change in the regulations on emigration's handling and about an
emergency situation in some countries. It is unfair to treat
Bulgaria in the same way as all the other Member States except
for Italy and Greece, he added. Malinov called for a "second
level of protection" for Bulgaria, which envisages the country's
 exclusion from the commitment to accept more refugees under a
quota principle. The argument for this demand is that Bulgaria
has already been in an emergency situation and it managed
without the EU's protection and support. He underscored that an
entirely new legal framework of the EU on  refugees and
emigrants is being elaborated at the moment, which is why now is
 the time to fight for Bulgaria's positions as a State with a
special status as an external  land border of the EU.