The country is facing sanctions due to a budget deficit, with PM Rumen Radev accusing his pro-EU predecessors of massaging economic numbers to secure entry Bulgaria is facing EU sanctions due to an excessive budget deficit, just months after joining the eurozone, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has said. He claimed that the crisis was caused by the previous pro-EU government, which massaged economic numbers to narrowly pass the threshold to join the eurozone in the first place. Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Sofia on Friday, Radev, who is widely regarded as an EU skeptic, said that the European Commission would publish its formal report on the country’s fiscal situation on June 3, thus launching the so-called excessive deficit procedure. Under the procedure, Sofia must bring spending from last year’s 3.5% back below the 3% ceiling by putting a binding cap on the budget deficit. If Bulgaria fails, ...
Posts
A senior CDU lawmaker says homeowners should use housing wealth before receiving state-funded nursing-home support A senior lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU has proposed requiring Germans to use their homes to pay for elderly care, triggering a political row over social welfare amid the country’s mounting fiscal pressures. The proposal by Albert Stegemann, deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, would tighten eligibility rules for public assistance with nursing-home costs, potentially requiring homeowners to draw on property wealth before receiving state support. “Those who own assets must first use their own assets, including their home, before the community pays,” Stegemann told Bild on Thursday. Germany’s long-term care system works in three stages. Mandatory insurance covers part of nursing-home costs, with patients expected to p...
The US secretary of war has said America needs “partners, not protectorates,” amid a dispute over the military bloc’s burden sharing The US will no longer “subsidize” the defense of “wealthy” allies, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said, reviving a long-running dispute between Washington and NATO’s European members over military spending. The remarks were made at a major security summit in Singapore on Friday. Hegseth linked the Trump administration’s push for higher allied defense spending to its broader strategy of shifting resources toward the Indo-Pacific and countering what he described as Chinese “hegemony” in the region. “The era of the United States subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations is over. We need partners, not protectorates. We seek alliances built on shared responsibility, not dependency,” Hegseth told the annual Intern...
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys previously urged the US-led bloc to show Moscow that it can neutralize its “small fortress” of Kaliningrad Croatian President Zoran Milanovic broke ranks with other NATO members as he slammed Lithuania’s foreign minister for his “irresponsible” call to attack the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Milanovic’s comments came after Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys called NATO the “strongest organization ever created” last week, arguing for a more assertive posture toward Russia and saying European NATO members must turn “fear of the threat into a sense of empowerment.” “We have to show the Russians that we’re capable of penetrating the small fortress they’ve built in Kaliningrad,” he said. “NATO has the capability, if necessary, to raze Russian air defenses and missile ba...
Berlin has imposed a “civil death” on Huseyin Dogru at Brussels’ behest, critics say Germany’s implementation of EU sanctions against a pro-Palestinian journalist whom Brussels has accused of fueling discord on Russia’s behalf has descended into “totalitarian madness,” German opposition politician Sahra Wagenknecht has said. Wagenknecht has called for financial restrictions imposed on Huseyin Dogru and his Berlin-based family to be lifted. On Tuesday, Dogru said Comdirect bank had frozen the assets of his elderly mother, citing what it described as a “control relationship over the funds by [her] son.” His wife’s bank account was targeted in March, while his father is reportedly under investigation by the authorities. “This is how dictatorships treat opposition figures,” the left-wing BSW party founder told Berliner Zeitung on Thursday. ...
Hungary will keep the policy of the previous administration in relation to Ukraine unchanged, Peter Magyar has reiterated Hungary will not supply weapons or military equipment to Ukraine, the country’s newly elected prime minister, Peter Magyar, said on Thursday shortly after meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels. Magyar’s center-right Tisza party defeated Viktor Orban’s Fidesz last month, securing a two-thirds parliamentary majority. EU officials, who had previously criticized Orban as a Kremlin-friendly politician, voiced support for Magyar ahead of the election and were widely seen as expecting him to roll back many of the previous government’s policies. Magyar, however, is far closer to Orban politically than the former prime minister opponents would like to admit. “I informed the Secretary General that Hungary is not supplying weapons or military equi...