Address by President Parvanov to the participants in the traditional New Year's Reception for the Heads of Mission accredited to Bulgaria
31-01-2005 11:00 |
National History Museum
Mr. Speaker,
Mr. Prime Minister,
Ministers, Members of Parliament,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for responding to my invitation to participate in this traditional meeting when we take stock of the past year and present our expectations and our vision for the new, 2005 in this case.
Bulgaria has welcomed 2005 with expectations for peace, stability and prosperity. Their hopes are based on the results of the past 2004, a year that will be remembered as a particularly successful for the country’s foreign policy!
This was a year when Bulgaria joined the North Atlantic Alliance as a full member, concluded its EU accession negotiations and undertook some serious commitments and responsibilities as a Chairman in Office of the OSCE. We have also had intensive contacts and promoted the dialogue and our bilateral relations with the EU countries and our NATO allies.
I trust, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, that 2005 will provide new facts and will add new even stronger evidence of Bulgaria’s strategic partnership with its European friends and the US. I feel sure this is going to be a year of strengthening the trans-Atlantic link, which is the pillar of peace and stability in the world.
In 2004 Bulgaria affirmed its role as a factor of stability and security in the difficult region of South East Europe. I feel sure that in 2005 this role will be filled with more tangible and concrete substance.
I wish to believe that in 2005 our relations with Russia, Ukraine and the CIS countries will gain further momentum, as has been the trend over the past few years.
We shall continue our line of stepping up our contacts with the countries of the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. We shall continue to revive our ties with traditional partners and build up new ones with potential partners.
The success of our foreign policy, Ladies and Gentlemen, your Excellencies, were only possible because in the past year we had sustained economic and political stability, effective and principled cooperation among the institutions. The political consensus on the main strategic aspects of our foreign policy has been preserved and developed further.
I wish to underscore that these achievements have become possible thanks to the active and effective support we were getting from the countries you represent and you personally, in an ongoing dialogue round the year.
We are aware that in 2005 our efforts to preserve the stability and prestige of the Republic of Bulgaria in the area of foreign policy, and our efforts to attain fully our strategic goals will be mostly contingent upon the way we address our domestic priorities.
May I assure you, Excellencies, and through you the states you represent here, that whatever the results of the next parliamentary elections, Bulgaria will keep the key parameters of its foreign policy. We shall stay on the same strategic course, acting as a reliable member of the international antiterrorist coalition. I take this opportunity to point out that the elections for a new parliamentary government in Iraq yesterday should be, and I believe will be, a significant step forward in the efforts to stabilize, restore and democratize that country.
Whatever the configuration of the legislative and executive powers in Bulgaria in the wake of the June elections I can vouch for a full continuity in honoring our foreign policy commitments. Bulgaria will continue to steer a proactive, multidirectional, balanced and pragmatic foreign policy.
My country will continue to make a major contribution to the international democratic community’s efforts to achieve peace, stability and more security; in fighting poverty and hunger, in the attempt to lend the processes of globalization a “human face”.
Bulgaria will continue to pursue an active policy for reducing the ethnic and religious differences among states, especially on our Continent, notably in the Balkans.
I take this opportunity, Your Excellencies, to invite you to the Forum on the Cultural Corridors that we are hosting in May. I believe it will prove that the cultural communication among our nations underpins a lasting, long-term strategic convergence.
Your Excellencies,
May I convey my warmest good wishes and greetings to the people and heads of state of the countries you represent here! Let us wish ourselves peace and prosperity, stability and well-being to our nations and states. Let us wish ourselves an even more active development of our bilateral contacts and cooperation in the international organizations where we participate.
I wish you all and your families a lot of good health, every success and happiness!
Thank you!
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