site.btaBulgaria Asks EC for Financing in Relation to Migration Situation

Bulgaria Asks EC for Financing in Relation to Migration Situation

Sofia, September 16 (BTA) - The Bulgarian Interior Ministry has submitted to the European Commission (EC) five projects, asking for financing under the Internal Security Fund's Emergency Assistance Mechanism and the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the Interior Ministry reported on Friday.

The projects have a total value of 160 million euro and aim to update technical equipment used for exercising border control along Bulgaria's external borders; increase the possibilities for integrated surveillance and modernize the communications and information systems along Bulgaria's external borders; strengthen Bulgaria's national capacity in the asylum and migration area.

Commenting on Friday in Parliament the situation in Sofia's Ovcha Kupel neighbourhood, where a few nights ago tensions ran high around the migrant centre there, and where local residents and nationalist formations are planning a protest against the centre, Interior Minister Roumyana Buchvarova said that she has information that the centre is not the source of tension, which is rather created by groups who are not even local residents. There are those who seek attention through such behaviour and have more radical attitudes towards the refugees, she said, adding that the upcoming election campaign obviously intensifies the situation.

The nationalist Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) said it is organizing a protest on Friday evening in the area around the refugee centre in Ovcha Kupel. Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova requested on Thursday round-the-clock police presence in the region.

Buchvarova noted that the police presence in Ovcha Kupel has been heavier for a while, there are gendarmerie patrols and security is provided at the request of the State Agency for National Security Chair, at whose discretion additional forces can be dispatched at any time. "I hope the protest, which is an expression of some form of position, does not grow and spread," the Interior Minister said.

According to Interior Ministry data, the refugee flow has increased recently, which is made up primarily of young people and unaccompanied children.

The Patriotic Front (PF) demands that all migrant centres and refugee camps, located on the territory of Bulgarian settlements, be closed and moved next to the border, while economic migrants be extradited, IMRO leader and PF Co-chair Krassimir Karakachanov said in a declaration in Parliament.

"We will not let Bulgaria become an immigrant centre, where illegal migrants from all of Europe are returned," he said. Karakachanov quoted data, according to which the number of asylum seekers between 2010 and end-2015 in Bulgaria was 33,269, while the number of issued permits and decisions was 28,300.