Key Meeting between EU and Turkey will Take Place in Bulgaria’s Varna

Key Summit between the Euroepan Union - Turkey will be held in Bulgaria’s Black Sea coastal city of Varna on 26^th of March. It will be attended Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey. Boyko Borissov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, will host the meeting.

This working dinner, starting at 19:00, is expected not only to bring Turkey-EU relations closer together, but also to achieve specific results. This meeting came after very difficult negotiations at the last European Council in Brussels due to Turkey's worsened relations with Greece and Cyprus.

Tusk and Juncker said they were looking with mixed feelings towards the summit. Despite that however, their expectations and those of Turkish President Erdogan are positive.

Turkey will insist on many important things for the country related to the full payment of the first tranche of the 3 billion euros for refugees as agreed on 18 March in the the agreement with the EU, as well on negotiations on visa liberalization for the Turkish citizens. On the other hand, Europe will insist on observing all international treaties concluded under the agreements with Turkey.

For Bulgaria, this meeting is exceptionally important because of the fact many times recently mentioned by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov that because of Turkey's compliance with the agreement and the fact that 3.5 million refugees are on its territory, the migratory pressure on our country, as an external border of the EU, has been reduced to almost zero.

The whole EU expects with great impatience precisely the mediating role of our country in this meeting, the Minister of European Affairs Lilyana Pavlova said in the BNT breakfast show "The Day Begins".