Bulgaria and Italy share a common stance on the necessity of improving the European policy in the sphere of migration, upon asylum granting and strengthening the protection of the external EU borders. This is what Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella emphasized at the talks they held today in Athens within the 15^th summit of the EU parliamentary republics.

Italy supports Bulgaria’s Schengen accession and works for fulfilling this important for our country priority, President Mattarella said at the meeting. Rumen Radev recalled that Bulgaria met the technical criteria for Schengen membership back in 2011.

The two highlighted the positive trend in bilateral trade, which exceeded 4.8 billion euros in 2018. Italy ranks fourth in terms of the amount of investments in Bulgarian economy with 2.530 billion euros in the past two decades. President Mattarella told the Bulgarian Head of State that the Italian business highly appreciates its Bulgarian partners and Bulgaria’s Schengen accession will additionally stimulate the Italian companies to invest in our country.