site.btaDeputy PM Kuneva:"Bulgaria May Propose to Host Regional Centre against Arms Trafficking"

Deputy PM Kuneva: "Bulgaria May Propose to Host Regional Centre against Arms Trafficking"


Brussels, January 23 (BTA Correspondent Nikolay Jeliazkov) - At
the forthcoming working meeting of the EU Justice and Home
Affairs Council, Bulgaria may come up with an idea to host a
centre against arms trafficking in the Western Balkans region,
Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister for European Policy and
Institutional Affairs Meglena Kuneva told Bulgarian journalists
here on Friday, emerging from a meeting with EU
Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove.

Kuneva said that Bulgaria has the resources and capacity to
propose to its partners a policy that involves particular
actions and results in this area. In her words, Schengen is part
of the answers and Bulgaria must take steps to show its
readiness for joining the border-control-free zone.

Conferring with officials of the Directorate-General Migration
and Home Affairs, the Deputy PM considered the options for
Bulgaria to receive financial resources from the EU Asylum,
Migration and Integration Fund as well as other opportunities
related to regional development and school education. A
possibility is being considered to reduce national budget
co-financing of EU projects targeting refugee integration. In
this way, a municipality that has to co-finance a project and
which can potentially accommodate people with a protection
status in Bulgaria, may be granted financing without
co-financing because it accepts and accommodates protection
seekers in this country, Kuneva specified. "It is unfair that
Bulgaria should take the entire burden," she commented regarding
the reception of refugees in her country.