Deputy Minister Ivanka Tasheva Represents Bulgaria at the EU General Affairs Council Meeting
16 June 2026 News
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivanka Tasheva represented Bulgaria at the regular meeting of the European Union's General Affairs Council, held in Luxembourg.
The meeting opened with a review of progress in the negotiations on the EU's next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the 2028 – 2034 period. For the first time, the Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the European Union presented for discussion a draft of the EU’s seven-year budget framework containing concrete financial allocations for the individual budget headings. “We welcome the Presidency's approach of safeguarding the allocation of funding for the Member States under the National and Regional Partnership Plans from the proposed budget reductions. This is an important positive step towards preserving Cohesion Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy,” Deputy Minister Tasheva stated. At the same time, she underlined that the overall balance of the proposal should be substantially improved through significant changes to the revenue side of the budget, which is regressive and, in its current form, would impose a disproportionately heavy additional burden on certain Member States.
In the course of the meeting, the ministers also discussed the proposal for a Regulation on the National and Regional Partnership Plans, as well as the draft Regulations establishing the Global Europe Instrument and the European Competitiveness Fund. "Bulgaria supports the establishment of a European Competitiveness Fund as a key instrument for promoting innovation, new technologies, industry and business across the European Union," Deputy Minister Tasheva stressed. She added, however, that Bulgaria would welcome broader opportunities for companies from all EU Member States to participate.
The Council continued with preparations for the forthcoming meeting of the European Council, scheduled to take place later in the week. The draft conclusions cover a broad range of issues on the European agenda, including Ukraine, the Middle East, the 2028 – 2034 Multiannual Financial Framework, competitiveness, geo-economic challenges and other key topics.
Deputy Minister Tasheva informed her EU counterparts of the incident outside the Bulgarian Embassy in Skopje on 15 June and reaffirmed Bulgaria's determination to continue combating hate speech and attempts to create an atmosphere of fear among Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia.
On the margins of the meeting, Ivanka Tasheva held bilateral talks with Thomas Byrne, Ireland's Minister of State for European Affairs and Defence, and András Bíró-Nagy, State Secretary of Hungary. Their discussions focused on the priorities of Ireland's forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which begins on 1 July 2026, as well as other key issues on the European agenda.
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