Press point opening remarks by Grozdan KARADJOV, Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria
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Deputy Prime Minister Naranjo will now take the floor, please.
Dear Commissioner Di de Costas, dear, Minister Koronakis, dear Mr. Savola. Dear Mr.
Mauro and, Your Excellency's, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Today's ceremony is more than just a signing of a document.
It is a turning point for our region. But also for all Europe.
For decades,
the idea of a truly connected north to south axis remained only a map on paper. A corridor imagined and not delivered.
A promise of economic integration, resilience and mobility,
but without the physical infrastructure to sustain it. Today we begin to change that.
The memorandum we sign is not a symbolic gesture.
It is a commitment to reshape the strategic geography of our region. To open new arteries for trade.
To relieve the bottlenecks at our borders and to give Europe the redundancy and resilience it urgently needs.
Our government has today Approved by its decision, the text of this memorandum. Therefore, Mr.
Gigi Costas, we are politically bound to this memorandum and we will fulfill what is written there.
The Danube, it lies at the heart of this transformation.
Because it is also a Europe's backbone,
a living infrastructure linking our peoples, our markets, and our ambitions. It is a river.
It is also a boundary, but it should not be a barrier.
As Commissioner Geostas rightly stated,
you cannot defend a continent if you cannot move across it.
It is exactly the spirit of this memorandum today. Our ambitions must become capacity. And capacity requires bridges. New Daniel Bridges. And not in singular, in plural plural.
They are essential for Europe's future, not just for our three countries.
Because this is not a bilateral project, but their European infrastructure that will first strengthen the single market, that will enable our military mobility,
that will unlock the investment throughout the continent and to ensure that the North-South axis becomes a functioning reality and not just another policy slogan. Europe needs alternatives. Redundancy, it needs resilience.
And this is what today's step is all about. This is what we unlock today.
Our cooperation with Greece and Romania is not driven by ceremony,
it is driven by necessity, by opportunity and by a shared strategic vision.
A vision in which our three countries Form a new European gateway.
Connecting the Aegean to the Black Sea, the Balkans to Central Europe, and the industries of the future to global markets.
The challenges ahead are significant, but the greater risk would be.
To continue as it used to be, like before, to leave the region underconnected and Europe underprepared.
Today we show that Southeastern Europe is not the periphery.
It is the next frontier of Europe's competitiveness.
So let us turn this momentum into construction sites, into bridges that carry not just vehicles and freight,
but also friendship between us, trust, cooperation, and shared prosperity. Thank you.