VARNA, September 23. /TASS/. European leaders have showed their helplessness in resolving the problem with refugees from the Middle East, former Bulgarian President and leader of Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV) party Georgi Parvanov said in Varna.
"The problem with refugees could have been predicted and prevented in advance," Parvanov said. "This problem should have been considered when the war broke out in Iraq. The solution should have been discussed from the beginning of the Arab Spring," he added.
Parvanov said Bulgaria should be happy that the refugee flow is bypassing the country for now. "It seems to me that at the moment we are not ready to welcome refugees on our territory," the politician noted stressing that the problem and its possible resolution should be discussed by the Consultative Council for National Security.
On Monday, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said at the 11th meeting of the heads of Central and Eastern Europe states in Germany that the European Union (EU) needs new dose of trust to overcome the migrant crisis in Europe.
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The EU needs new dose of trust to unite the will of the European countries to overcome the most serious series of crises over the past years, presidential press service cited Plevneliev’s speech.
"The EU finds itself not only in a crisis of identity but also in a crisis of values. When we close our borders to people seeking asylum from the severest war of the past years, when we shift the responsibility to one another, when we do not observe the set rules and when several member states do not even register the refugees, we should realize that there is a need for the EU to take measures," the president said.
"Today we will unite ideas about how we can speed up the cohesion. No matter what forms there are, we all realize that the only weapon we have to avoid war in Europe is the integration," he said.
The president noted, that if the EU member states turned incapable of overcoming the crises as a unity, they would face the risk of isolation and instability. "Isolation should remain the 20 century, which will be the era of walls, tension and conflicts between the separate countries and their selfish interests," the president said.