The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Svetlan Stoev, participated in the informal meeting in Budapest of the Secretaries of State and General of the EU Member States
13 June 2024 News
On 13 June the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mr Svetlan Stoev participated in the informal meeting in Budapest of the Secretaries of State and General of the EU Member States. At the meeting, Hungary, which will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July 2024, outlined the main priorities on which the Hungarian presidency will focus: Enhancing EU competitiveness, EU unity in the field of common foreign and security policy, strengthening security and European defence capabilities and industry, enlargement policy on its own merits, countering illegal migration, demographic challenges, the future development of cohesion policy and the Common Agricultural Policy with a focus on individual farmers, and the protection of Europe's cultural heritage. The formal presentation of the priorities of the forthcoming Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU is expected in the second half of June 2024.
In the discussions that followed, the Permanent Secretary highlighted the key issues for Bulgaria on: obtaining a date by the end of 2024 for the abolition of land border controls in the context of Bulgaria's Schengen membership, the continuation and strengthening of comprehensive support to Ukraine, the strategic role of the Black Sea region for the security and sustainability of the EU and the need to formulate an EU strategy for the Black Sea; energy and migration policy, EU enlargement policy and progress based on the principle of own merits, EU competitiveness, etc.