A second Bulgarian diplomat – Ambassador Yuri Sterk – has been appointed as an Ambassador of the European Union.

In a special statement, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Catherine Ashton has announced the appointment of Ambassador Yuri Sterk as Head of the EU Delegation in Uzbekistan, as part of the European External Action Service (EEAS).

“We are delighted by Baroness Catherine Ashton‘s decision to appoint Yuri Sterkto this post, which is key to European policy in Central Asia. This is the second Bulgarian diplomat to head an EU delegation after Mr. Philip Dimitrov, EU Head of Mission in Tbilisi,” Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov commented, as cited by the press service of the Foreign Ministry in Sofia.

Sterk has thus begun the second Bulgarian to hold the post of EU Ambassador, after former Bulgarian Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov (PM in 1991-1992) was appointed EUAmbassador to Georgia more than a year ago.

Ambassador Yuri Sterk, a career diplomat from the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, has a degree in Public International Law from the Moscow Institute of International Relations; he has been a trainee in the Diplomatic Training Program at Stanford University, California; he also has a DEA in Political Science, profile “Construction Européenne” from the Institute of Political Science, Robert Schuman University, Strasbourg, France.

Sterk has served as an adviser, as head of the Public International Law unit, director of the NATO directorate and as Director-General for Political Affairs and Security at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria.

He was Permanent Representative of Bulgaria to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and currently is Bulgaria’s Ambassador to Israel.

European Union finance ministers have addressed Bulgarian concerns as they agreed on a plan to force banks to hold more capital to counter their risk-taking.

After Bulgaria voiced concerns that banks may be forced to hold more capitalagainst the country’s sovereign debt, the EU ministers decided that banks in the country will not be obliged to report as risky the assets they hold in euros and will not be required to have more capital in relation to them.

The government in Sofia has pressed for the concession as the country operates in a currency board regime, in which the lev is pegged to the euro and all Bulgarian currency in circulation is backed by foreign exchange reserves.

European Union finance ministers broke an impasse Tuesday and agreed on a plan to force banks to hold more capital as a buffer against the unexpected, but bowed to pressure to give national regulators some leeway to impose higher standards on their banks.

The agreement was required for Europe to implement new global rules on banking standards known as Basel III, which were endorsed by the Group of 20 largest economies in 2010 and are meant to force banks to sock away more cash for bad times.

The so-called Basel III deal would force lenders to increase their highest-qualitycapital gradually from 2 percent of the risky assets they hold to 7 percent by 2019. An additional 2.5 percent would have to be built up during good times.

Under the accord agreed on by the finance ministers, member states can independently require their banks to set aside another buffer equal to 3 percent of risk weighted assets, provided the increase is applied across the entire region.

The draft approved by ministers means negotiations can begin on a final text with the European Parliament, where a committee passed its own version late Monday.

The EU hopes that the new international agreement on capital defenses for bankswill prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

The vanishing of sentenced Bulgarian businessmen known as Galevi Brothers will have a negative effect on the EU‘s July monitoring report on Bulgaria, according to Bulgarian Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

“Of course, there is no way that this event can be positively taken. The European Commission has repeatedly insisted that it wants to see criminals punished,” explained Tsvetanov.

Controversial Dupnitsa businessmen Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov were convicted to 3 and 4 years in jail for organized crime activities.

But May 3 it turned out that they are nowhere to be found, after they failed to present themselves to serve their sentences.

Saturday Tsvetanov did not fail to use his usual rhetoric device by blaming Bulgaria’sjudiciary for the disappearance of the so-called brothers.

“It is the court that could have prevented this to happen by imposing detention on the defendants, rather than a bail,” said the Bulgarian Minister of Interior.

The Galevi Brothers were on BGN 100,000 bail, which they chose to forfeit rather than render themselves after being sentenced.

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Bulgarian EU commissioner Kristalina Georgieva is in her home country to take part Wednesday in festivities marking May 9, Europe Day.

Together with President Rosen Pleveneliev, Georgieva will take part in the opening of a public debate ”Bulgaria – Five Years in the EU. Let’s Transfer European Ideas to the University. Is the European Project Exhausted?”.

The debate is organized in partnership with the youth team “Europe,” the Sofia University student council, and the European youth movement “Bulgaria.” It will take place in the aula of Sofia University, beginning at 10 am Wednesday.

At noon, the Commissioner will attend the performance of the EU anthem Ode to Joy from Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony by 30 school orchestras in the park in front of the National “Ivan Vazov” Theater in downtown Sofia.

Georgieva’s agenda also includes a meeting with her Facebook friends to be held at the Radisson Blue hotel in Sofia at 12:30 pm. The meeting is open to all who confirm their attendance at http://www.facebook.com/events/402299503137271/

In the evening, the Commissioner will take part in the official opening ceremony of the Festival of European Cinema at the National Palace of Culture at 7:30 pm.

EU leaders will assemble on an emergency European Council May 23 to discuss measures to stimulate economic growth in the Union.

This was revealed Tuesday byEuropean Council PresidentHerman Van Rompuy on his Twitter account.

The announcement comes in the wake of a special statement byEuropean Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso calling for stepping up measures to create growth in the EU.

In his address, Barroso recalled prior stimulus measures proposed by the Commission which he said he would like to see implemented.

The EC President further stressed he hopes for swift developments that could make the effects of the measures be felt before the end of the year.

Some have connected the move with Sunday’s election of socialist Francois Hollande, an adversary to excessive austerity, to be France’s next President.

European Commissioner for Financial Affairs Olli Rehn had already issued a statement suggesting that Europe should move away from preoccupation with austerity and concentrate on promoting growth to tackle the crisis.

The May 23 European Council is set to be a difficult one, as the leaders of EUJuggernaut Germany – Chancellor Angela Merkel and her FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble - are staunch defenders of financial stringency and austerity.

In the first two months of 2012, Bulgaria’s exports to the EU exceeded BGN 3.3 B, decreasing by 8.1% from the same period in 2011.

In the period January – February 2012, Bulgaria’s imports from EU countries increased by 6.7% on the year to BGN 4.1 B (CIF prices), according to data of theNational Statistical Institute (NSI).

Two-thirds of Bulgaria’s exports to the EU went to five countries – Germany (11.9% decrease from January-February 2011), Italy (7.9% increase), Romania (23.6% decrease), Greece (17.3% decrease) and France (12.6% increase).

January and February 2012 were the first two months to bring a decrease after a constant increase in exports in 2011.

Exports fell by 7.3% in January and by 8.9% in February, as compared to the same months in 2011.

In the period January-February 2012, Bulgaria’s foreign trade balance (export FOB – import CIF) with the EU was negative and amounted to BGN 709.4 M.

At FOB/FOB prices (after eliminating transport and insurance costs on imports) thetrade balance was also negative and amounted to BGN 520 M.

According to NSI data published about a month ago, Bulgaria’s total exports in the first two months of 2012 came in at BGN 5.7 B, while imports amounted to BGN 6.9 B.

The Euro Area (EU 17) had a seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate of 10.9% in March 2012, compared with 10.8% in February, according to the latest figures released Wednesday by Eurostat.

The unemployment rate in the EU 17 was 9.9% in March 2011, with the March 2012 figure marking the highest unemployment in the euro zone member states since the spring of 1997.

According to Eurostat, EU27 unemployment rate was 10.2% in March 2012, stable compared with February. It was 9.4% in March 2011.

Bulgaria is ranked 8th by unemployment in the EU 27, with a March 2012 seasonally adjusted rate of 12.6%, right after Slovakia.

Eurostat estimates that 24.772 million men and women in the EU27, of whom 17.365 million were in the euro area, were unemployed in March 2012. Compared with February 2012, the number of persons unemployed increased by 193 000 in the EU27 and by 169 000 in the euro area. Compared with March 2011, unemployment rose by 2.123 million in the EU27 and by 1.732 million in the euro area.

Among the member states, the lowest unemployment rates were recorded in Austria (4.0%), the Netherlands (5.0%), Luxembourg (5.2%) and Germany (5.6%), and the highest in Spain (24.1%) and Greece (21.7% in January 2012).

Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate fell in eight Member States and increased in nineteen. The largest falls were observed in Lithuania (17.5% to 14.3% between the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2011), Latvia (17.1% to 14.6% between the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2011) and Estonia (13.9% to 11.7% between the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2011). The highest increases were registered in Greece (14.7% to 21.7% between January 2011 and January 2012), Spain (20.8% to 24.1%) and Cyprus (6.9% to 10.0%).

Between March 2011 and March 2012, the unemployment rate for males increased from 9.7% to 10.8% in the euro area and from 9.3% to 10.2% in the EU27. The female unemployment rate rose from 10.2% to 11.2% in the euro area and from 9.6% to 10.3% in the EU27.

In March 2012, 5.516 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU27, of whom 3.345 million were in the euro area. Compared with March 2011, youth unemployment increased by 303 000 in the EU27 and by 163 000 in the euro area. In March 2012, the youth unemployment rate was 22.6% in the EU27 and 22.1% in the euro area. In March 2011 it was 21.0% and 20.6% respectively.

The lowest rates were observed in Germany (7.9%), Austria (8.6%) and the Netherlands (9.3%), and the highest in Greece (51.2% in January 2012) and Spain (51.1%).

In March 2012, the unemployment rate was 8.2% in the USA. In February 2012 it was 4.5% in Japan.

Bulgaria’s authorities are striving to absorb up to EUR 2 B for transport and infrastructure from the EU funding slated for the country for the 2007-2013 financial programming period, Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski has stated.

Moskovski told students at the Sofia University of Architecture, Construction, and Geodesy on Wednesday that 1/3 of the total funding for Bulgaria under EU Operational Program “Transport” have already reached the end beneficiaries.

Thus, over EUR 308 M have been paid under OP Transport to the Bulgarian beneficiaries only in 2011, which is three times the amount absorbed in 2007-2010.

Eight large-scale projects, each worth over EUR 50 M, are being funded by OP Transport in Bulgaria, which has a total of budget of over EUR 2 B, of which EUR 1.6 B are EU money, explained Galina Vasileva, head of the Program and Project Coordination Directorate at the Bulgarian Transport Ministry.

In her words, the second EU funding programming period for Bulgaria in 2014-2020 will allow for long-term planning and prioritizing, with five major priorities being on the table: development of roads and railways, improvement the navigation of the Danube River, improving intermodality in the transportation of passengers and freight transport, development of city transport networks, and introduction of innovations in transport services and management.

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For the past five years, we Bulgarians have been saying we are back to Europe. By that, we mean the European Union only, and nothing else.

Because Bulgaria has always been in Europe – throughout its entire history, even during those controversial five centuries of much suffering that we love to associate with our southern habits and spicy cuisine.

That’s why, on that day in April when the Tsar (i.e. Bulgaria’s Prime Minister in 2001-2005, ex Tsar Simeon Saxe-Coburg) was giving a fatherly tap on the shoulder to then Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, after the former had just singed Bulgaria’s EUaccession treaty, we actually received the glorious comeback we had been looking forward to ever since that minute in November when the subdued Todor Zhivkov (i.e. the leader of communist Bulgaria before 1989) was looking unfathomably at the comrades around him. And it was right back then that we styled that day the start of our comeback in Europe.

That is, formally.

But in fact this is when our suffering commenced with the eternal dilemma over whether we Bulgarians are in Europe, or not. Perhaps we had missed something – we are in the EU, but our salaries are the same, our relationships are nervous and emotional, neighbors keep throwing out their trash from the balcony in front of the entrance of the apartment building, or beating the dust out of their tablecloths on our heads, and the staircase gets swept only once a month. Are we in Europe?… Our cars – parked on the sidewalks, the prices – among the highest, the salaries – among the lowest, the people – nervous and gloomy, and, most importantly, the crisis overshadowed even our most fragile, fleeting memories from the nice years before it, from those few years when real estate prices were soaring, and the construction business was booming like never before…

It was exactly back then that we got our limitless but also delusional hopes that this will be our standard of living bestowed upon us by the hard-working Germans, the artistic Italians, the emotional Spanish, or the sophisticated French. Or, in other words, our friends from Europe made efforts in order to welcome us, and give us a treat, and they could have even thrown some billion our way as compensation since we suffered so much under communism…

That is the truth, the very truth itself.

And it’s lacking just one single element that this text is actually about. We forgot the golden rule that Europe is what we ourselves make of it. Not anybody else. If the relations in an office are intelligent and creative, if the manager has a vision for the future, for development, if the team is united and motivated – then we are inEurope. If the neighbors in an apartment building respect and help one another, if there is a common understanding that it must be clean, peaceful, and safe – we too are in Europe. If… We all know – a countless number of “if”-s can be mentioned here. That is why, the European Bulgaria will be exactly what we make of it.

Actually, there is one more element that we need to have in mind – generation change. The f-Generation, or the Facebook Generation, is the best guarantee that there is no coming back, and that the desperation over the slow transition won’t be gain the upper hand, and overshadow the desire that all of us have to live in a modern and a lot more civilized Bulgaria. Because – formally – one day, not so far into the future – everything will be where it belongs.

And one of the indications of whether we Bulgarians are indeed Europeans or not is certainly our attitude towards those who chose to live in another country, and not in Bulgaria. I am avoiding the word “foreign” on purpose because in fact the “foreign” countries – and thank God for that! – are becoming fewer and fewer. Do natives of the northeastern Bulgarian city of Shumen who settled in Madrid’s suburb Getafe live in a foreign country? How can Spain be a foreign country if it is in the European Union?

Should the thousands of our Bulgarian compatriots who wash dishes, carry suitcases, and take care of elderly people see the Netherlands or England as foreign countries?… Within the EU, foreign countries are becoming fewer and fewer, and we must get used to the fact that more and more people around us will seek their happiness in countries where the Bulgarian language is exotic, more than anything else.

Because the fact of the matter is that a successful Bulgarian abroad is a lot more useful for their homeland that if they were to be successful in Bulgaria. In the countries where the Bulgarian language is exotic, competition is many times greater, and success is many times sweeter. And the sweetest and most successful thing would be to create a mini Europe around us every day – wherever we live, work, or just pass by. That’s how seven million small Europes will make us Bulgarians feel a full-fledged part of one of the most beautiful and successful places on the plant. It is called… Europe. The place we will be coming back to for many more years to come. Every day.

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There is progress in the Netherlands with respect to lifting the Dutch veto on Bulgaria and Romania‘s Schengen Area accession, according to the Dutch Christian Democratic Party, a MP claim.

Dutch Christian Democratic Member of Parliament Henk Jan Ormel spoke on the Bulgarian National Radio Saturday, stating that Bulgaria and Romania‘s chances of joining the visa-free Schengen agreement are growing.

In September 2011, together with Finland, the Netherlands vetoed Bulgaria andRomania‘s Schengen bid out of concerns over corruption and rule of law. The role of the far-right Dutch Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, which is still part of the governing coalition, has also been viewed as instrumental in the Dutch veto on Bulgaria and Romania‘s accession to the visa-free area.

Henk Jan Ormel‘s statement comes after the Dutch Cabinet collapsed, and general elections were scheduled.

“We think we have progress on Schengen. The political situation is such that we will hold elections in the Netherlands on September 12. Only after that will we have talks for forming a new government. This can take a month or two, and will depend on the election results,” the Dutch MP said.

Even though he shied away of making explicit forecasts about Bulgaria andRomania‘s Schengen bid, Henk Jan Ormel made it clear his party believes there is progress, and that if Bulgaria and Romania‘s annual monitoring report by the European Commission in July under the post-accession Cooperation and Verification Mechinism is positive, there will be specific steps on part of the Netherlands, regardless of the upcoming elections.

He further notes the key role that the Dutch Parliament now has with respect to discussing the results of the EC reports on Bulgaria and Romania, now that the Dutch Cabinet has collapsed.