Member states of NATO

Bulgaria and Romania's full entry into Schengen is still uncertain, with Austria not yet ready to lift its veto, despite hopes expressed by both the Romanian and Bulgarian governments.

This picture taken on Oct. 12, 2015 shows the C-Lion1 submarine telecommunications cable being laid to the bottom of the Baltic Sea by cable laying ship "Ile de Brehat" off the shore of Helsinki, Finland.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," a song by Greek singer Nikos Papazoglou goes. This feeling is prominent when it comes to Greek-Turkish relations. Tensions, threats, and Turkish claims make up the main reality of the last 50 years. On many issues, however, we have a radical change of reality compared to 1974.

Lake Ohrid, a UNESCO World Heritage site that straddles North Macedonia and Albania, is at risk from pollution, overfishing, and urban development, the United Nations body and experts say.

Greece ranks last in the economic freedom chart among the European Union states, according to the study published by the Center for Liberal Studies (KEFiM) in collaboration with the Canadian Fraser Institute.

It is also 16th from bottom in the world in terms of the size of the state, and in the penultimate position in the EU in terms of citizens' real disposable income.

Türkiye and North Macedonia share aligned views on various regional and global issues, Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş stated on Thursday, during a joint press conference with the Speaker of the Assembly of North Macedonia, following both one-on-one and delegation-level meetings in Ankara.

As trade volume between Türkiye and Finland has steadily increased in recent years, currently reaching 2.7 billion euros, the aim is to elevate this figure to 5 billion euros ($5.5 billion) "as soon as possible," Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told Turkish media on Oct. 3.

Nearly 900,000 Romanian tourists visited Bulgaria between January and July 2024, according to Deputy Minister of Tourism Irena Georgieva. Speaking to a group of Romanian journalists in Plovdiv, she noted that over 500,000 of these visits took place during the period from May to July.

Bulgaria ranks among the top five countries in the European Union for growth in tourist overnight stays during the April to June 2024 period, according to data from Eurostat cited by the Ministry of Tourism.

Bulgaria allocates the highest percentage of its gross domestic product to police and security compared to other European Union countries. While this figure is as low as 0.7% in Ireland, it reaches 2.5% in Bulgaria, the highest in the EU.