Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [Forgive the cut-off line but it's in the original. Without doubt it refers to the preeminent concern of the nazi collaborationist former monarch's and current prime minister's commitment to joining NATO. In a country, one of the world's worst victims, along with fellow NATO satrapy Georgia, that should be a focus for any true humanitarian in addressing the human ravages of the past decade's transition to 'democratic free market reforms'; where in a recent poll 80% - 80% - of the Bulgarian people said they considered themselves impoverished and saw - I quote - no hope for the future. No hope for the future. For genuine internationalists, any authentic humans, among us, the responsibility to publicize and redress the horrors the Bulgarian people are undergoing is an elementary moral demand. We can start by supporting the efforts of the Bulgarian Workers Party in their planned demonstration against NATO on October 5th.] Monday September 10, 10:35 PM Bulgarian premier makes first official visit abroad SOFIA, Sept 10 (AFP) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg makes his first official visit abroad on Wednesday, visiting Brussels to try to promote his impoverished country's ambitions to join the European Union and Saxe-Coburg, former king of Bulgaria at the age of six who became premier last July 24, will meet European Commission President Romano Prodi and Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU bloc that Bulgaria badly wants to join. He will also meet NATO Secretary General George Robertson to push an application for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation at a NATO summit in Prague in late 2002. Saxe-Coburg, who returned to Bulgaria from exile 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. The former monarch, who spent most of his most of his 50 years of exile in Spain, will also meet Belgium's King Albert II, to whom he is distantly related. He is also a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. The 64-year old is the first former monarch to return to power at the ballot box since the collapse of communism in 1989. "It is a working visit intended to give the Bulgarian government a real view of the road towards accession and on the way in which the EU can cooperate," an official of the 15-nation bloc said in Brussels. Bulgaria, one of 10 former communist bloc countries currently negotiating EU membership, has set its heart on completing tough membership talks by 2004 and joining in 2006, later than most other eastern candidates which are more advanced in their preparations. Along with neighbouring Romania, Bulgaria is poorer than other EU candidate countries, which also include Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, the three Baltic states and the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. It faces tough economic reforms before it can join. In a bid to ease the way, the Bulgarian parliament has called for reforms in the social protection system, the fight against poverty and for a national employment plan to be drawn up. Since the communist regime fell in 1989, Bulgaria has signed six standby agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is currently negotiating a new one to replace one which expired in June. The IMF last week expressed concern over the effects of Bulgarian fiscal reforms proposed in August by the new government in a bid to revitalise the Bulgarian economy. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.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 ==^================================================================
