site.btaForeign Minister: Bulgaria Must Not Allow Addition of Conditions for Schengen Accession

Bulgaria must not allow conditions to be added that did not apply to another country when it joined the Schengen area, said Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel during the parliamentary Question Time within the first sitting of the autumn session of the Parliament on Friday.

"We must continue to clearly assert that Bulgaria has met the technical criteria. This is what the European Commission has said," Gabriel noted. She recommended Bulgarian MPs to be even more active on the issue in contacts with their fellow MPs from other countries.

"The Foreign Ministry is not competent for any of the laws that have to be adopted and are related to the Schengen area", Gabriel added.  She also pointed out that the issue of illegal migration should be kept high on Bulgaria's agenda.

Responding to a question, she explained that the Central Election Commission (CEC) had sent an invitation to the UK Ambassador to Bulgaria to assist in contacting the company related to the way the elections are organized, purely logistically, and whose headquarters are in London. The issue was raised by the Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov, who said earlier in the day that a meeting had been held at the CEC between Gabriel, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev and the UK Ambassador. Gabriel pointed out that she was invited to the meeting by the CEC. Kostadinov said that  Vazrazhdane will send a letter to the CEC asking if the it has invited the Ambassador.

The Foreign Minister underlined that there was no risk of any foreign interference in the elections.