site.btaVice President Comments on Government's Response to Wildfires

Vice President Iliana Iotova said it seemed inexplicable to her that the Bulgarian Government had not sent a detailed letter to the Emergency Response Coordination Centre and the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism not just about having helicopters sent from Czechia, but also about additional equipment. In her words, Sofia could also ask for the alerts and analyses of the Coordination Centre, which has a huge array of early warning information and could save this country from further fires, which will be increasingly difficult to deal with.

Iotova recalled that back in 2018 when Bulgaria was hit by floods President Rumen Radev suggested that a National Disaster, Emergency and Crisis Coordination Centre be set up, which was not done. "If we had this centre now, an early warning system would be in place, we would receive information faster via satellite and the Copernicus Emergency Management Service - I think that such disasters would not have happened," she said.