site.btaPrime Minister: We Need Young People in the Alliances that Ensure Our Security

Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov told GERB’s youth section on Sunday that the party’s “most important potential is the potential to want a better living for the Bulgarians, for our country.” Zhelyazkov said: “We need active citizens, young people in the alliances that ensure our security.”

“Bulgaria has long been a part of NATO and the European Union,” the Prime Minister said during the GERB Youth General Assembly in Sofia. He noted that the country’s EU accession treaty was signed 20 years ago. “The EU is the most just union, and Europe is the best place to live. This is the direction which we should keep following in our aspirations.”

He pointed to the existence of factors standing in the way of the EU’s development, “such as war, which had been forgotten in Europe but now forces our countries to think about defence resources.” He recalled that at its June 24-25 Summit in The Hargue, NATO decided that each member state’s public spending on defence should reach 5% of GDP by 2035. Out of the total ratio, 3.5% of GDP should be core defence expenditures and 1.5% should be for science, infrastructure and technology for dual (military and civilian) use.

“Europe must ensure its own security to avert a situation where Ukraine is repeated in the Baltic states, Moldova and Romania. We have come to a point where we must have warships if we want to have sailboats gliding around.”

The defence spending goal implies a level of targeted investments which should be achieved by 2035. There will be no annual targets along the way, Zhelyazkov said. He vowed that defence funding will not come at the expense of social funding.

“The three pillars of the EU are security, investment and a just social transition,” the Prime Minister said. For the sake of social justice, he said, it is necessary to revise the green transition policy. He argued: “The EU is home to 5% of the world’s population. If we achieve zero imprint by 2050, it will save the world 6% of its carbon emissions, but we will have lost our competitiveness by then. Therefore, our ambition is to promote competitiveness while easing the regulatory burden.”

According to Zhelyazkov, security makes for economic development.