The United States Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Brian Yee has made a second visit to Bulgaria for the past seven months as part of a tour of the region. Emerging from talks with Prime Minister Boyko Borissov the guest said the two countries had reaffirmed their strategic partnership and added the US was firmly supporting Bulgaria and had hailed its measures against terrorism.

Central to the talks held in Sofia was energy security. Here is Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov with more:

„I hope that the way we attentively listen to and reform the judicial, pension security and health systems as well as the security services and take proper care of efforts to combat contraband and corruption, we will come up with a common position about the energy union for the sake of genuine diversification. Bulgaria subscribes to building the southern gas corridor. We also want to see the Bulgarian interest properly regarded; we favor the resumption of the Nabucco gas pipeline and insist on its route passing through Bulgaria. It took me a long time to assure Mr. Yee that I do not see a great difference between South Stream and Turkish Stream. My position is adamant, and I am glad that Mr. Yee is aware of the medium and long term importance of this point, because it has to do with the energy security of the whole of Europe. Bulgaria has sacrificed many things for the sake of common Euro-Atlantic development. Therefore, I expect that we will be compensated with more investments, greater economic growth and more common topics on which we could work together.”

The Bulgarian Prime Minister also said that for the time being the government would halt the purchase of military aircraft so as to avoid too much public spending. He mentioned the extraordinary European Council on Thursday in Brussels that is going to focus on migration pressure from Africa and the Middle East on Europe and Bulgaria by both land and sea:

„Bulgaria is spending lots of money. I believe that land borders have worse problems than the sea ones. If the European Commission allocates more cash on strengthening sea borders, then the whole migration pressure will come from land borders”, Borissov warned.

The Prime Minister was explicit about his discontent over joint action with neighboring countries on migration and voiced hopes that everybody would remain loyal to Euro-Atlantic solidarity.

English Daniela Konstantinova