Bulgaria
EU member states are becoming increasingly inward-looking and eager to promote aid policies which prioritise foreign or domestic policy objectives. These are the main conclusions of the annual AidWatch report by CONCORD, released on May 19th in Brussels.
Despite being the world’s biggest aid donor, only nine countries met their EU aid targets in 2010, with the bloc as a whole falling...
EU public gives big ‘yes’ to development aid
Nine out of ten European Union (EU) citizens say that aid for developing countries is very important or fairly important, according to the EU’s ‘Eurobarometer’ poll on ‘Europeans, development aid and the Millennium Development Goals’. It canvassed 26,500 EU citizens across all 27 EU Member States in June...
Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian citizen, was recently appointed EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. The rapidity with which her initial emergency package was delivered in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti did not go unnoticed. She has already developed a reputation for communicating in a direct and heartfelt manner.
Interview by Hegel...
In the run up to the September Review conference in New York on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the European Commission has drafted a staff working paper on ‘More and Better Education in Developing Countries’, http://ec.europa.eu/development/icenter/repository/SEC2010_0121_EN.pdf) and is in the midst of drawing up other thematic papers on health, food security, gender...
Bulgaria’s development programme on the launch pad
Bulgaria’s government was poised to give the go-ahead to its first-ever bi-lateral development strategy when we visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia mid-January 2010. Going to press, an “ordinance paper” was awaiting the approval of Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers at the start of 2010. This is...
How to integrate and end discrimination of the Roma?
The Roma in Bulgaria make up the country’s second largest minority or 4.7 per cent of the population. According to official figures, the Stolipinovo area of Plovdiv has one of the largest concentrations of Roma. Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) claim discrimination against the Roma, whereas other commentators say that feeling of...
Waiting to be discovered
Name Europe’s oldest inhabited city. Athens, Thebes (Greece), Cadiz (Spain) or Larnaca (Cyprus)? Few would pick Bulgaria’s second city, Plovdiv, which lies 150 km south east of capital Sofia, also listed as the sixth oldest inhabited city in the world in the Time Out Guide*, The World’s Greatest Cities. All its fascinating layers of history which...
Plovdiv: New ventures for Europe’s oldest inhabited city
Bulgaria joined the EU in January 2007 but five of its six planning regions* hover in the bottom ten of the EU’s regions ranked by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Following a change in Bulgaria’s government in July 2009, now led by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov of the Citizens of European Development Party, it...
Bulgaria is a newcomer to the EU-ACP partnership. As an economy in transition, it has itself been a recipient of foreign aid for the past 20 years. Nonetheless the Balkan state gained experience in development cooperation when the Communist regime was in power. From the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s, Bulgaria was a donor of development aid to over 40 countries including some in sub-...
During its six months as holders of the EU presidency, the Czech Republic most certainly plans to extend European development policy to Eastern European countries. Yet this will not in any way be at the cost of renouncing the privileged links between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. This is especially true for the African countries in whose interests...
EU member states are becoming increasingly inward-looking and eager to promote aid policies which prioritise foreign or domestic policy objectives. These are the main conclusions of the annual AidWatch report by CONCORD, released on May 19th in Brussels.
Despite being the world’s biggest aid donor, only nine countries met their EU aid targets in 2010, with the bloc as a whole falling...
EU public gives big ‘yes’ to development aid
Nine out of ten European Union (EU) citizens say that aid for developing countries is very important or fairly important, according to the EU’s ‘Eurobarometer’ poll on ‘Europeans, development aid and the Millennium Development Goals’. It canvassed 26,500 EU citizens across all 27 EU Member States in June...
Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian citizen, was recently appointed EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. The rapidity with which her initial emergency package was delivered in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti did not go unnoticed. She has already developed a reputation for communicating in a direct and heartfelt manner.
Interview by Hegel...
In the run up to the September Review conference in New York on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the European Commission has drafted a staff working paper on ‘More and Better Education in Developing Countries’, http://ec.europa.eu/development/icenter/repository/SEC2010_0121_EN.pdf) and is in the midst of drawing up other thematic papers on health, food security, gender...
Bulgaria’s development programme on the launch pad
Bulgaria’s government was poised to give the go-ahead to its first-ever bi-lateral development strategy when we visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia mid-January 2010. Going to press, an “ordinance paper” was awaiting the approval of Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers at the start of 2010. This is...
How to integrate and end discrimination of the Roma?
The Roma in Bulgaria make up the country’s second largest minority or 4.7 per cent of the population. According to official figures, the Stolipinovo area of Plovdiv has one of the largest concentrations of Roma. Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) claim discrimination against the Roma, whereas other commentators say that feeling of...
Waiting to be discovered
Name Europe’s oldest inhabited city. Athens, Thebes (Greece), Cadiz (Spain) or Larnaca (Cyprus)? Few would pick Bulgaria’s second city, Plovdiv, which lies 150 km south east of capital Sofia, also listed as the sixth oldest inhabited city in the world in the Time Out Guide*, The World’s Greatest Cities. All its fascinating layers of history which...
Plovdiv: New ventures for Europe’s oldest inhabited city
Bulgaria joined the EU in January 2007 but five of its six planning regions* hover in the bottom ten of the EU’s regions ranked by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Following a change in Bulgaria’s government in July 2009, now led by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov of the Citizens of European Development Party, it...
Bulgaria is a newcomer to the EU-ACP partnership. As an economy in transition, it has itself been a recipient of foreign aid for the past 20 years. Nonetheless the Balkan state gained experience in development cooperation when the Communist regime was in power. From the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s, Bulgaria was a donor of development aid to over 40 countries including some in sub-...
During its six months as holders of the EU presidency, the Czech Republic most certainly plans to extend European development policy to Eastern European countries. Yet this will not in any way be at the cost of renouncing the privileged links between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. This is especially true for the African countries in whose interests...
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