#BGVOTESEU Shows Bulgaria Still Has a Long EU Road Ahead

What does Bulgaria look like in the EU? How does it meet all the needs of democratic transformation?

How could the EU vote affect the its citizens' lives, restating Bulgaria's commitment to being part of the European democratic family?

In #BGVOTESEU, the event organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) and PanEuropa Bulgaria, experts, politicians and civil society representatives tried to answer these questions. They discussed Bulgaria's European choice, the yet-unacquired benefits of EU membership and the challenges still lying ahead of democratic development.

Daniel Kaddik, the FNF's Project Director for Southeast Europe, kicked off the conference with an appeal that Bulgaria change the way it perceives its EU membership, as it does not imply any automatic steps of progress.

His opening remarks were followed by those of Prof. Ognyan Gerdzhikov, who was Parliament Speaker in the government which saw Bulgaria joining the EU and who outlined Bulgaria's long road to European membership in a rather witty keynote speech and described the country's accession treaty as “the best one Bulgaria has ever signed”.

Seven Years of Bulgaria in the EU: A Dream Still to Be Accomplished?

In the first part of the conference, bearing the name above and moderated by PanEuropa Bulgaria's President Gergana Passy, the negative aspects of Bulgaria's performance as a EU member were on the agenda, and five prominent

The Director of the Open Society Foundation's Legal Program, Ivanka Ivanova, placed a special emphasis on the Verification and Cooperation Mechanism and its negative aspects for...