Political philosophy

The European Commission announced the establishment of a fleet of specialized planes to combat forest fires this summer. So far, seven firefighter planes and six helicopters will be part of the fleet, the commission said, quoted by BTA.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network launched a cross-border journalism platform on Monday aimed at shining a light on issues affecting the health of democracy across a swathe of Europe vulnerable to rising populism and authoritarianism.

The Administrative Court will meet today on the air clean-up case in Sofia. It was filed by non-governmental organizations against Sofia Municipality.

More than 200 municipalities in Greece have secured funding of about 3 million euros from the European Union for the creation of wireless broadband internet infrastructure (WiFi).

The funding will come by way of the WiFi4EU initiative, and each municipality that enters the program will receive a subsidy of 15,000 euros to create one or more WiFi networks within its jurisdiction.

Today is the last day in which EU citizens of 18 years of age can declare their willingness to participate in the distribution of 20 000 free travel cards within the framework of the European Union's "Discover the EU" initiative.

The quota for Bulgaria is 275 tickets. Those wishing to apply can apply through the European Youth Portal.

In the EU, over a third (35.3%) of men aged 25-34 still live with their parents in 2017, compared with only 21.7% of ladies of the same age group, according to a Eurostat study. On average, one in four young Europeans live in their family home.

Who - or what - are the gatekeepers of democracy? What do they do? A colleague in civil society, the director of an NGO board, suggested the term for a conference we are to cohost on the role of NGOs and think-tanks in democracy promotion. The term is commonplace among civil society theorists and practitioners, she assured me. I had my doubts initially.

The European elections are almost upon us. In the runup to May 23-26, one of the biggest issues people have been discussing and indeed mobilizing around, is how we protect our climate and our environment.

Protecting the environment is something that Europeans think the EU is doing well, should do more of and should have more powers to do so.

Weeks ahead of European Parliament elections that will see the formation of a new Commission, EU leaders adopted a Declaration on Thursday at the close of the European Council summit in Sibiu, Romania, emphasizing the bloc's main directions for the next five-year cycle.

"Only a united and strong Europe can guarantee peace and justice." This was stated by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in his speech at the working lunch of the heads of state and government of the EU member states in the Romanian city of Sibiu.
European leaders are taking part in a summit in the Romanian city of Sibiu, a government press service said in a statement.