site.btaPresident Radev Attends Armistice Day Centenary Ceremony in Paris

ESD 19:19:31 11-11-2018
LN1922ES.107
107 POLITICS - ARMISTICE DAY - PARIS - BULGARIA - PRESIDENT

 President Radev Attends Armistice Day Centenary Ceremony in Paris


Paris, November 11 (BTA) - Bulgarian President Rumen Radev participated Sunday in the ceremony commemorating the centenary of Armistice Day which ended World War One, said Radev's Press Secretariat.

He was there along heads of international organizations, heads of State and government from over 80 countries around the world, including UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UNESCO Director-General Odra Azoulay, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

President Radev and his wife Dessislava Radeva were welcomed at the Elysee Palace by President Emanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron.

Later in the day the Bulgarian Head of State took part in the Paris Peace Forum.

In his remarks at the forum the President presented a project for building an international institute for sustained technologies in Southeast Europe. He pointed out that the institute will work for a more even distribution of the research potential in Europe and offer opportunities to young people from Southeast Europe to join research teams in the Balkans.

Furthermore, the project is expected to reduce the brain train from the countries in this region, Radeb said.

He pointed out the support of ten Balkan countries for the project and said it is a sign that the region has shed the negative heritage of the past. "The idea that some goals can only be achieved by cooperation, is now becoming part of the regional political culture," he said.

He catalogued Bulgaria's advantages as the possible seat of the future institute, including the available infrastructure and resrach capacity.

Radev recalled that it was in the Balkans that the First World War started over a century ago. "This is why we have to work to make sure the region which continued to generate conflicts, be stabilized in all possible aspects," he said.

He went on to speak about the importance of taking European connectivity beyond infrastructure and into technologies, education and research. "In this respect Southeast Europe is lagging considerably behind and no matter how much we work in the other areas of cohesion and solidarity, we cannot be equal members of the EU unles we overcome this gap between Europe's East and West," he said.

BTA's special correspondent contributed to this story from Paris.

LN/DD/