As of now, as of this second, Bulgaria is a member of the European Union!
Congratulations to all of the Bulgarians, who contributed to this historical fact! Congratulations to all my friends and colleagues, who made this possible:
– Ivan Kostov, former prime-minister (1997-2001);
– President Peter Stoyanov (1997-2002);
– President Georgi Parvanov (2002-current);
– PM Simeon Sax-Coburg Gotha (former PM, 2001-2005):
– PM Sergey Stanishev (PM, 2005-current);
all foreign ministers
– Nadezhda Mihaylova, Solomon Passy, Ivailo Kalfin, and all their deputies, among them Petko Draganov, Nikolai Milkov, Lyubomir Kyuchukov, Gergana Grancharova, Todor Churov, Evgenia Koldanova, Feim Chaushev, to name a few;
– Meglena Kuneva – our Minister for the European Integration, and first Bulgarian EU Commissioner;
– the cheif-negotiators for the EU Membership – Alexander Bozhkov, Vladimir Kissiov;
– Bulgarian ambassadors to the EU-member countries, to the USA, and to the UN: Amb. Elena Poptdorova, Stefan Tafrov (who was in Paris, London, Rome and in New York as Permanent Representative of Bulgaria to the UN), Dimitar Tsanchev;
– members of the Parliament;
– hundreds of employees at the Foreign Ministry, Parliament, Council of Ministers, other Ministries;
– and last, but certainly not least – to all Bulgarian people. Each of them… each of us who has done a little, had actually done a lot. Because when we put together all the little pieces, they formed together our European membership.
Bulgaria is back to its origins, to its family. Finally.
Congratulations, and good luck!
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P.S. from 00:30. Just finished watching on the Internet, live, the official program on the Bulgaran National TV, from Alexander Batenberg square in Sofia. Wonderful show – and with participants from all over Bulgaria. Thank you all, who made this show and the Internet broadcasting possible! Special thanks go to Mitko!
Good luck indeed to all Bugarians, Veni !
The road ahead is far from easy. From what I heard in television reports, the average salary is about 250 Euro currently in Bulgaria. This is certainly a competititive advantage right now.
On medium term, though, the goal is more to raise the standards of living in Bulgaria to the same level as the rest of the EU. Which also means higher salaries … and thus higher production costs. In the end, it will be innovation that will make the difference.
Let us not forget the important contribution of (the late) Ilko Eskenazi, former Deputy Prime Minister (1992) who headed the negotiations for the associaton of Bulgaria to the European Community. The signing, in 1993, of the resulting “Europe Agreement” constitutes the first significant milestone that marked Bulgaria’s integration into the EU (see e.g. http://www.evropa.bg/en/del/eu-and-bulgaria/additional-information/bulagria-eu-political-relations.html). The Europe Agreement remained in force until Bulgaria’s actual accession to the EU on January 1, 2007.