Bulgaria, Greece, Romania sign joint declaration to boost connectivity

The prime ministers of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania signed on October 9 a joint declaration on boosting trilateral transport and digital connectivity.

The document, signed by Prime Ministers Nikolai Denkov of Bulgaria, Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece and Marcel Ciolacu of Romania, underlined the excellent relations between their countries and acknowledged the key importance of good-neighbourly relations in southeastern Europe, Xinhua informs.

The three leaders recognized the urgent need to further increase and expand cooperation in developing connectivity by building strategic transport and energy interconnections and digital networks along the North-South axis to strengthen cohesion and economic growth in the region and in Europe as a whole.

"The ever-growing importance of multidimensional connectivity between our three countries, the EU (European Union) interregional connectivity as well as connectivity in the wider neighbourhood demand further advancement of projects of common interest in order to radically improve the cross-border infrastructure," the joint declaration said.

"We have agreed to identify and develop new routes/corridors on the North-South axis connecting the three countries through new rail and motorway infrastructure," it said.

The three leaders agreed to establish a Trilateral Working Group led by relevant ministers to prepare and sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the financing, development, construction and management of a multimodal transport corridor linking the three countries.

The three leaders renewed their call for a positive decision on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU's border-free Schengen area in 2023.

The three leaders also agreed to strengthen cooperation in combatting illegal migration by breaking human smugglers' networks and disrupting their financing and supply chains as part of the common effort at the EU level towards managing illegal migration.