Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- New Bulgarian Premier to Discuss NATO, EU Hopes in Brussels SOFIA, Aug 29, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Bulgaria's prime minister and former child king Simeon Saxe-Coburg is to pay his first visit to Brussels next month, to discuss his country's European Union and NATO membership hopes, a spokesman and media reports said Tuesday. Saxe-Coburg, who took office on July 24, will meet NATO Secretary General George Robertson and European Commission President Romano Prodi, according to the Bulgarian daily Standard. Simeon, who returned to Bulgaria at the start of the year before scoring a landslide victory in June elections, has made NATO and EU entry his key foreign policy objectives. Government spokesman Tzvetelina Ouzounova declined to confirm who Simeon is scheduled to meet, saying: "The program for the visit has not been decided yet." Bulgaria joined European Union membership talks in 2000. The country hopes to join the union in 2006-7 and to be invited to begin negotiations to join NATO in 2002. He became king when he was six years old in 1943 but fled Bulgaria three years later after a referendum came out in favor of a republic under the communist regime. The 64-year old is the first former monarch to return to power at the ballot box since the collapse of communism in 1989. The daily Standard also said the former king will visit Belgian monarch Albert II, who is a distant relation. Simeon Saxe-Coburg is also a distant relation of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
