Kristian Vigenin: Bulgaria takes very seriously its commitment to chair BSEC
15 November 2013 News
" Bulgaria takes very seriously its commitment to chair the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization in the next six months," said Minister Vigenin at today's meeting of the Public Council to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which was discussing the priorities of the Bulgarian presidency of the organization from 1 January 2014. " For our government, for me and the MFA, the active participation in the regional cooperation in its various formats is very important. Thus, we will try to contribute to the most to the development of BSEC while simultaneously demonstrating our strong role in the process of regional cooperation. One of the challenges in our region is that there are many and different organizations which often lack the necessary synergy. Ensuring greater synergy in the activities of these organizations is one of the challenges that we are going to address by actively working on it. In coordination with Greece, which from January 1 takes over the rotating presidency of the EU, we will seek to guarantee a more active coordination between BSEC and the EU," said Vigenin. The Minister pointed out that there are big and strategic projects, promoted in recent years. "It is important to achieve concrete results in some projects in order to see the added value of this organization for the development of the countries from our region."
" The unification of our efforts in the implementation of the BSEC projects will give a great impetus to the economy of each Member State," said on his part Ambassador Dr. Victor Tvircun, Secretary General of the BSEC Permanent International Secretariat. He emphasized that the organization promotes the development of closer relations with the EU and other international partners. " We try to create an attractive environment not only for the public, but also for the private sector, promoting cooperation in academia ," added Tvircun.
During the meeting, the main priorities of the forthcoming Bulgarian presidency of BSEC from 1 January 2014 were outlined: transport and in particular the Black Sea Ring Highway, youth and sports issues, maritime policy and the fight against organized crime. The great importance of the establishment of dynamic contacts between the EU and BSEC was also outlined. In this regard, there were proposals made for new initiatives in the BSEC activities.