Sofia

A Bulgarian national and a Pakistan national have been arrested over helping foreign nationals stay in Bulgaria illegally, according to the Interior Ministry.

The fifth regional police department in Sofia, together with Border Police unit of the Interior, started working on the case on December 26.

"I am in Bulgaria to show that NATO is as committed to Bulgaria as Bulgaria is to NATO," the alliance's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with a local daily ahead of his Thursday visit.

The governance program prepared after the cabinet was formed in November and a new bill on energy efficiency are on the agenda of Wednesday's cabinet meeting, officials say.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party is ready to join a "grand coalition" including all parties to the left, a socialist lawmaker has said.

Maya Manolova, who was at the spearhead of the formerly ruling BSP's legislative moves in the previous Parliament, is now known for her dissension with some of her party's main policy lines.

A program worth CHF 76 M (EUR 75 M) has been agreed between Bulgaria and Switzerland, according to Tomislav Donchev, Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister in charge of EU funds and economic policy.

Donchev made clear Tuesday that the Bulgarian-Swiss cooperation agreement was yet to be finalized.

Bulgaria's Privatization and Post-Privatization Control Agency (PPCA) registered revenues of BGN 2.35 M in the first half of 2014, according to a report of the PPCA submitted to Parliament.

The sum includes compensatory instruments with a nominal value of BGN 1.7 thousand.

Bulgaria runs the risk of having just EUR 22 M under Operational Program Environment locked for 2014, compared to EUR 205 M in the previous year, the country's Environment Minister has said.

Ivelina Vasileva told reporters on Monday Sofia was putting in effort to speed up absorption procedures and to avoid all corrections.

SOFIA/BELGRADE - Serbian Armed Forces troops are participating in the Platinum Lion military exercise in Bulgaria alongside US, Bulgarian and Romanian colleagues.

The exercise, held from January 12 through 23 at the Novo Selo training range, involves 30 Serbian Armed Forces troops, as well as over 300 members of the US, Bulgarian and Romanian armed forces.

The forthcoming EU Commission report under the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification (CVM), will be more positive for Romania than for Bulgaria, European sources say.

Bucharest should expect a text suggesting improvement in 2014 compared to 2013, according to the information cited by Mediafax and Romania Insider.

Bulgaria, a country playing a "central role in Europe's emerging energy picture", is becoming "the latest wishbone in the struggle between Moscow's efforts to to assert its energy dominance over Europe and the West's efforts to cage that gassy bear," according to Foreign Policy.