Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met this morning, at Maximos Mansion, with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Nikolai Denkov.
Welcoming his Bulgarian counterpart, the Prime Minister stated:
“Today is the Restoration of our Democracy, hopefully, next year, a big celebration. But it also coincides with difficult days in terms of the forest fires. Thank you again. You’ve always been very kind to offer your assistance and we’re very appreciative of all the international help that has been offered to Greece. These are the consequences, unfortunately, the real life consequences of climate change. We still have a difficult summer ahead of us, but we’ll do our best. But again, many thanks to all our friends”.
Statements by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Prime Minister of Bulgaria Nikolai Denkov, at the beginning of the extended meetings of the delegations of the two countries, follow:
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Prime Minister, it’s a real pleasure to be able to welcome you today to Athens. As I said, this is an important, a rather symbolic day, as we’re celebrating 49 years since the Restoration of our Democracy in 1974. It’s also a difficult day because of the wildfires that have plagued Greece over the past days. Thank you again for your generous assistance and also thank you to all the countries that have offered to help us during those difficult days.
Your support is highly valued and again, it’s a demonstration of the excellent level of our bilateral relations. But we have a full agenda to discuss. We consider Bulgaria to be a strategic partner for Greece. We have lots of topics that we can work together, and I’m sure we’ll discuss in much more detail starting from our European agenda and then moving to our cooperation in energy, in infrastructure, in transport.
As you know, Bulgaria is a very important economic partner for Greece, a big export market, a big destination for Greek foreign direct investment, but also a country we feel very close to culturally, always welcoming many visitors to Greece during the summer and we hope that the numbers will increase further this year. So it’s a pleasure to be welcoming a friend to Greece.
Nikolai Denkov: Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, and I’m really happy to be here. Dear Ministers, we have a lot of work to do, but fortunately, this work is put on a very good basis because the relationships are really in excellent conditions. But we have so many common interests that I do believe in the next couple of months and years, we can advance very significantly in all these sectors that you mentioned. You mentioned the transport, the energy sector, I could mention also the security efforts on the eastern flank of NATO, something that became important, unfortunately, in the last year.
And it’s not a surprise that we are with a very strong team here, because in all these sectors we have specific projects that some of them have already started. Several of them are on the table for discussion and can be started in the next couple of months. So what I found when I entered the office is that, fortunately, with Greece, there was a very active, not only contact, but also very active collaboration in all these sectors.
As I said, we are on a very good basis and we can continue with a very high speed on this. So I’m ready to discuss topic by topic, but if you want, you can start with the priorities for you and then I’ll continue with the discussion.
During the meeting of the two delegations, the prospect of strengthening trade and economic relations was discussed. They also exchanged views on cooperation in the fields of energy, transport and interconnectivity, as well as on projects of mutual interest.
Furthermore, they discussed issues on the European agenda, such as Migration, as well as Bulgaria’s participation in this year’s Thessaloniki International Fair as the honored country.
