Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 05 September 2016: The Czech Republic will assist Bulgaria in protecting the EU`s external border

During the first day of a two-day visit of the President of Bulgaria to Prague, R. Plevneliev met his counterpart M.Zeman. The main focus of the discussion was on the refugee crisis. M.Zeman has assured R. Plevneliev that the Czech Republic will assist Bulgaria in protecting the EU's external border. Bulgaria has the longest land border with Turkey among all the member states and therefore faces serious challenges from migrant influx. The President of Bulgaria underlined that the border remains under control mainly due to productive cooperation with Turkey, still called the EU for tighter control of the external borders.

According to R. Plevneliev, border control does not deny respect of human rights and freedoms. The President of Bulgaria also stated the need to differentiate refugees from economic migrants, as long as Bulgaria cannot guarantee jobs.

As a result of the meeting, the Czech Republic is going to deploy officers in Bulgaria. Recently, the Czech officers were deployed in Greece, Slovenia, Macedonia and Hungary in order to patrol borders.