site.btaPrime Minister Borissov Participates in European Council Videoconference

June 19 (BTA) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov
participated in a videoconference of the European Council, the
Government Information Service said on Friday.

The Summit focussed on a discussion of the Multiannual Financial
 Framework 2021-2027 (MFF) and a Recovery Plan responding to the
 COVID-19 crisis and a new long-term EU budget for 2021-2027.
The proposed recovery instrument, called Next Generation EU,
amounts to 750 billion euro. This recovery instrument, together
with targeted reinforcements to the long-term EU budget for
2021-2027, would bring the total financial capacity of the EU
budget to 1.85 trillion euro.

Bulgaria supports the Recovery Plan as the proposed approach is
ambitious, of an emergency and provisional nature. In this
innovative way, the European Commission succeeds in combining
measures in response to the crisis and the advantage of loan
capital with the capacity of the EU budget. A balanced
compromise between grants and loans has been proposed, Borissov
said, expressing Bulgaria's position.

As regards the next MFF, the Bulgarian head of government was
optimistic about the chances of European leaders coming to a
compromise soon. He believes that a balanced agreement will be
reached as early as next month, providing funding for all
policies, priorities, instruments and measures, including for
coping with the latest challenge facing the EU: COVID-19. Along
with that, however, additional efforts are also needed for the
traditional EU budget priorities and the rules for their
implementation. Paying special attention to the poorest regions
in order to overcome profound social and economic problems there
 is a sine qua non condition for the achievement of sustained
economic growth, employment, investments and convergence in the
EU as a whole and beyond the present crisis, Borissov said.

The PM congratulated the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council,
noting that Croatia maintained the momentum generated during the
 Bulgarian Presidency in respect of the European perspective of
the Western Balkans. RI/BR

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