Agencies of the European Union

On 21-22 June 2018 Sofia hosted the 20th high level meeting of the Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism on Drugs of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (EU - CELAC).

On 20 June 2018, EU ambassadors confirmed an agreement reached on 19 June between the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council and the Parliament on rules amending the regulation on Eurojust, the European Union agency for criminal justice cooperation. The regulation establishes a new governance model with the aim of improving the operational effectiveness of the agency.

Montenegro said it seeks a status agreement with the EU's border and migration agency Frontex, to protect its border as a fresh migrant and refugee influx causes concern in the region and in Brussels.

An Interior Ministry document, which BIRN has seen, says an official application for a status agreement with Frontex "will be launched soon".

With Bulgarian Minister for Energy Temenuzhka Petkova chairing the meeting, EU Member States today agreed on an updated role for ACER, the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, so as to enable a better collaboration between national electricity and gas regulators.

Commenting on today's success, Ms Petkova said:

The Council today agreed its position (general approach) on a regulation to update the role of ACER, the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators. The agreement provides the Presidency with a mandate to start negotiations with the European Parliament.

With Bulgaria's Minister for Information Technology and Communications Ivaylo Moskovski as chair, the telecommunications ministers of the EU Member States today confirmed their position on draft EU rules to ensure that products and services in the digital world are safe to use.

More than 1000 militants  from EU member states participate in the ranks of the "Islamic state", 800 of them from the Western Balkans, became clear at the meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Control Group on the activities of Europol in Sofia. 

Romanian and German police and organised crime prosecutors moved on Wednesday in a simultaneous operation to search scores of locations in both countries, to dismantle a refugee trafficking network whose hub was in Timisoara, western Romania.

The European Union saw in 2017 the lowest number of detected illegal border-crossings since the migrant crisis began four years ago, the EU border agency Frontex said Feb. 20.

The Romanian Border Police in 2017 participated in 13 joint operations and a pilot project organised under the aegis of the FRONTEX European Border and Coast Guard Agency, having deployed 370 border guards and four sea-going boats, according to the 2017 activity report released by head of the General Border Police Inspectorate (IGPF) Ioan Buda on Thursday.