Armenia and Bulgaria Acknowledge Their Role in Connecting the Gulf Coast to the Europe

• 02.14.2018, 19:02
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  Europe,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Armenia

On February 12-13 the state visit of Bulgarian President Rumen Radev to the Republic of Armenia took place. At present, when Armenia managed to completely realize its “and, and” policy (being a member of the EAEU signed a cooperation agreement with the EU), the visit of the Bulgarian President to Armenia, when it took the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, is of special importance. It is worth noting that Radev has previously stated many times that Bulgaria is committed to cooperate with Russia and the EAEU. As parts of different processes, the further deepening of cooperation between Armenia and Bulgaria can also contribute to the cooperation of the two integration processes (EU and EAEU).

The transportation sphere is one of the directions of the cooperation between Yerevan and Sophia that is of mutual interest. The part found in the statement of the Bulgarian president which states that the two countries should productively use “the Gulf Coast-Black Sea corridor to develop our relationship” deserves special attention.  Moreover, the president of Bulgaria approved the suggestion made by the president of Serj Sargsyan to organize the meeting of the transportation ministers of the concerned bodies, which can become an interesting platform for multilateral cooperation. This proves that the both sides not only prioritize the role of Armenia and Bulgaria in connecting the Gulf Coast to the Europe, but they also have the clear vision to utilize the existing opportunities.

The agreement gained during the visit to organize an extended meeting of the Armenian-Bulgarian businessmen in Burgas was also important. Such an initiative will ensure continuous cooperation of the businessmen from the two sides. In this context, the rising interest of Bulgarian businessmen to invest in Armenian was especially prioritized, which was first of all conditioned by the membership of Armenia to the EAEU, the EU-Armenia cooperation, as well as the opportunities given by the free economic zones created in Armenia.

The fact that in the Bulgarian delegation there were also parliamentarians also deserves special attention. It speaks of the fact that the Bulgarian side prioritizes the role of the parliamentary diplomacy in strengthening the bilateral relations and is willing to take actions in this direction to make the cooperation more active. This is especially prioritized at this stage when Armenia passes to the parliamentary way of governance.

In the framework the state visit of Bulgarian President the continuous strengthening of the bilateral cooperation on the international platforms was prioritized, the number of document on expending and deepening bilateral cooperation were signed.

To sum up we can state that both Armenia and Bulgaria express enough political will to raise the level of both bilateral and multilateral cooperation.