President Ilyana Yotova spoke today with her Slovak counterpart Peter Pellegrini. Their meeting took place on the sidelines of the general political debates at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, the press office of the Bulgarian head of state announced.

The two leaders first discussed the European Union's multiannual financial framework for the 2028-2034 period. Both agreed that cohesion policy and the Common Agricultural Policy should be preserved, as they support the less developed member states of the union. Bulgaria and Slovakia are both members of the EU's "Friends of Cohesion" group.

Yotova and Pellegrini also identified better transport and energy connectivity in Southeastern Europe as a priority.

The president's press office added that the two heads of state were firm on one point: the European Union should not develop as a "multi-speed" bloc in which larger countries hold the upper hand.

The meeting also touched on rising fuel prices. According to both presidents, there is no adequate response to this problem at the pan-European level, and for now each country is dealing with it on its own.

A central topic of the conversation was also the lack of an active European role in the negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Yotova's press office noted. She recalled that on February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. The EU is directly affected by the consequences and must therefore take an active stance. It should take the initiative itself in the peace negotiations.