site.btaALDE Co-chair Kyuchyuk: Only Way Forward for Bulgaria Is Full Schengen Membership

For Bulgaria, the only way forward is full membership in Schengen. This is what ALDE co-chair Ilhan Kyuchyuk said on Monday at the opening of the EU Meets the Balkans Forum in Sofia.

"We are not a quasi-state and we do not accept quasi-Schengen. We know how much Bulgaria can contribute to EU integration. What added value our country can have," Kyuchyuk said.

Over the years, the forum has aimed to take a kind of snapshot of what is happening in the EU and the region. During these years, the EU has changed. Many EU sceptics said it would not be able to stand up after the COVID-19 pandemic. It has become clear that they were wrong. For the first time in its history, it has gone to the common financial markets. It made sure that we had vaccines and that businesses and citizens felt European solidarity," Kyuchyuk said.

"Just when we thought that everything was back to normal, Russia invaded Ukraine. Many said that the EU would bend. Exactly the opposite happened - the support continued and was very consistent," he said. According to him, despite the major criticism, the EU continues to be the most attractive place because of its high democratic standards, its rule of law, the economic welfare it provides to its citizens. "We need to integrate more among ourselves, among these 27 EU member states," Ilhan Kyuchyuk said.