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Minister Petříček met with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Zaharieva

(This article expired 31.07.2021 / 14:08.)

On 9 July 2020, Minister of Foreign Affairs Tomáš Petříček met with Deputy Prime Minister for Judicial Reform and Foreign Minister of Bulgaria Ekaterina Zaharieva. The ministers discussed strengthening economic cooperation, combating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and European issues.

One of the main points of the meeting was the possibility of strengthening economic cooperation between the two states. "There is broad potential for further development in this area," Minister Petříček said. "Bulgaria remains an interesting market for Czech companies. Last year, trade between our two countries exceeded EUR 1.6 billion and continues to grow. Another important topic in the meeting was the exchange of experience in combating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic." Bulgaria was one of the first countries with which the Czech Republic resumed tourism, seeing as how both countries managed the pandemic very well. The ministers also spoke on European issues, in particular the EU enlargement process, the multiannual financial framework, the recovery package and intra-EU cooperation.

Other topics of the meeting included the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. To commemorate this anniversary, both ministers opened an exhibition entitled Bulgarian Czechs at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute. "Few people know this, but for decades before the establishment of diplomatic relations, our ancestors co-created cultural and political life in the then young Bulgarian state," the head of Czech diplomacy said at the opening of the exhibition.

The meeting of ministers followed the visit of Minister Petříček to Sofia in November 2019.

Later on, Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva also met with the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Radek Vondráček, and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Andrej Babiš. "We are both lawyers, which corresponded to the topics of the negotiations. We talked, for example, about judicial reforms and anti-corruption legislation in our country and in Bulgaria, including in connection with the Greco Group report. We also discussed the lobbying law," said Radek Vondráček. "Many Czechs decided to spend their holidays in Bulgaria, so we talked about the latest developments around COVID-19 in their country. We also discussed the recovery of economies after the pandemic and the distribution of European money," Prime Minister Andrej Babis shared after the meeting on Twitter.

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Ekaterina Zacharieva v Praze