Kristian Vigenin: Restricting the free movement of people reduces the EU competitiveness
16 January 2014 News
Curbing one of the four freedoms - the free movement of people, violates the sensitive balance of the internal market and leads to reduced competitiveness and weakened growth opportunities in the EU. This was one of the key messages sent by the Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin at his meetings in London during the first day of his visit. He held talks with the Chairmen of the Foreign and Home Affairs Committees of the House of Commons of the British Parliament - Richard Ottaway and Keith Vaz and ministers from the Labour Shadow Cabinet - Douglas Alexander, Shadow Foreign Secretary, and Gareth Thomas, Shadow Minister for Europe. In addition, Minister Vigenin emphasized that this approach is actually in contrast to the needs of British business of 1.2 million jobs as advertised in the European Job Mobility Portal EURES.
In his talks, Kristian Vigenin called both sides to resume the constructive dialogue at political level and to focus on topics and themes of the EU agenda and the bilateral relations, on which they could cooperate effectively.
The Foreign Minister discussed with the British partners also the issues of reducing the administrative burden on the business, strengthening the Economic and Monetary Union, the EU enlargement, the Eastern Partnership, the situation in Syria and others.
Later Minister Vigenin participated in the panel discussion on the topic “Embracing reform: Lessons from Eastern and Central Europe" as part of the pan-European Conference for EU reform , taking place in London on 15 - 16 January.
More photos
