Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev is attending the Arraiolos Group Meeting in Latvia’s capital Riga. President Radev called on the European Union to focus on security problems related to processes in Europe. The European Union needs a much more efficient decision-making mechanism, especially in crisis situations. The EU often reaches a consensus a whole year after the emergence of the problems, Bulgaria’s head of state Radev said. In Rumen Radev’s view, without adequate defense capabilities, the EU is not able to guarantee the security of the member states in the neighboring regions which continue to generate risks and trigger migration waves. 

President Radev met within the frameworks of the forum his Portuguese counterpart Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. Presidents Radev and Sousa shared common stands about the future of the EU, the expansion of bilateral cooperation, the fight against terrorism, the migration topic, etc. Rumen Radev thanked President Sousa for the good attitude towards the Bulgarian community in Portugal which amounts to nearly 13,000 people and invited his Portuguese counterpart to visit Bulgaria in the first half of 2019.

The ideas for the development of the European Union and the threat of Europe’s fragmentation have been central to the talks of President Rumen Radev with the German head of state Frank-Walter Steinmeier. At the meeting held at the initiative of the German president the two officials have discussed the prospects for expansion of bilateral cooperation between Bulgaria and Germany.