Thank you Solomon for that warm welcome. The Atlantic Club is a
longtime and valuable partner of the U.S. Embassy here in Bulgaria and I
am pleased to join the distinguished list of Ambassadors who have
spoken to your audiences.
As many of you know, I arrived in
Bulgaria at the end of September. I have spent the past four months
meeting with Bulgaria's leaders and with representatives of the
opposition, with journalists, with artists, with students, and with
representatives of civil society. In short,When I first started creating
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trying to get a sense of what Bulgarians think is important and
especially how you would like to see the relationship with the United
States develop.
The United States and Bulgaria already enjoy a
productive partnership that encompasses many fields. We work together on
security and science, on energy and education, on the arts and
archaeology to name a few. In September of this year we will celebrate
110 years of bilateral diplomatic relations. That is over a century of
U.S.-Bulgarian friendship.
Roman philosopher and statesman
Seneca said that one of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship
is to understand and to be understood. That expresses very well an
important goal of partnership and of diplomacy in general. We strive to
understand and to be understood.
But it is also true that for
countries to collaborate they must have mutual interests, and for that
collaboration to be sustained, they must have shared values.We open
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system that was developed with the goal of providing at least
room-level accuracy. For the U.S. and Bulgaria these include a
commitment to democracy, to a free market economy, and to equal rights
for our citizens.
We share a desire for our children to have
more than their parents. We value education. We embrace modernity. We
have a pride in our countries' national endowments - in the case of
Bulgaria the mountains, the seaside, a history as long as that of
civilization. Americans are proud of our national endowments as well
and, like Bulgarians, are concerned to protect them.
I am one of
those who continues to believe that Europe is the United States' most
important partner. It is with Europe that we have our largest volume of
trade, with which we are partnered in the world's most important
military alliance, and with whom we have a shared global perspective.
I
hardly need to remind this audience of the value of the transatlantic
partnership since the Atlantic Club played such an important role from
the beginning.
Together, we are committed to keeping our
Alliance strong, to protecting Western Democracies and to securing
prosperity for future generations.
It is these common values and
common commitments that underpin the relationship between our two
countries.Since arriving in Bulgaria, I have been listening to what the
people of Bulgaria want from our bilateral relationship in order to make
our joint work responsive to our shared needs. As I have met Bulgarian
citizens in Sofia and outside the capital, they have shared with me the
things they are proud of about Bulgaria, and in moments of candor, the
things they want to change, so that their children and grandchildren can
inherit a more prosperous, more secure Bulgaria with strong democratic
institutions. One of the messages that I hear repeatedly is that they
would like more U.S. business cooperation and more collaboration. We,
too, would like to make that happen.
Bulgaria is six years into
European Union membership, has been a member of the NATO alliance for
nine years, and is on the path towards evolution into a mature European
democracy. We envisage the role of the United States to be one of a
supportive partner enabling Bulgarians to achieve your own aspirations.
Coping
with the challenge posed by international terrorism is another shared
commitment. Recent events in Algeria, which involved hostages from eight
different countries taken by militants of at least four different
nationalities claiming to protest events in a neighboring African
country, demonstrate the global nature of the threat and the need for
collaboration amongst like-minded states, like ourselves, in countering
it. The bombing in Burgas was another crime in which innocent people
from another country were attacked here in Bulgaria. We are impressed by
the professionalism and determination with which Bulgarian security
experts have approached the investigation and we await the results.
Beyond
the pure economic impact of American investment in Bulgaria is the
social impact. American companies have a strong culture of corporate
social responsibility. American companies bring this corporate value
with them when they go abroad and create lasting and meaningful change
in communities they support. Here in Bulgaria, American companies have
banded together to create programs such as the American Chamber of
Commerce Volunteer Days, when employees go out and work on projects
around the country organized by the Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation.
Going
forward, I hope to see many more American companies attracted to
Bulgaria by its highly skilled workforce and beneficial tax conditions.
For companies to come here and thrive though, we all need to work
together to promote an atmosphere of openness, predictability and
partnership in which business truly has a voice in the country's
economic vision. There are ample opportunities for U.S. investors and
exporters to expand in Bulgaria. Part of growing foreign investment will
be taking steps to ensure that Bulgaria continues to be seen as an
attractive location, where rules are consistent and consistently
enforced.
Trade between our two countries amounted to 643.3
million dollars in 2011 and could expand even more with the introduction
of better intellectual property rights protection, including of
copyrights. Now, I know that my saying this will not be popular with
some, but it is just a fact of economic life.Elpas Readers detect and
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platforms. One last point on economic cooperation and that is the
current discussion of a U.S.-European Free Trade Agreement. As the U.S.
Special Trade Representative said this week, President Obama is
committed to reaching an agreement to smooth trade with the European
Union. Though, all acknowledge that there will be tough hurdles to
overcome.
I would like to speak now about perhaps the most
challenging and sensitive part of our relationship - our work together
to combat organized crime and strengthen the rule of law in Bulgaria. In
recent years, we have identified drug trafficking, cybercrime, ATM
skimming, and other economic crimes as priority areas for law
enforcement cooperation. Collaboration between our respective law
enforcement services is excellent in these areas and is producing
concrete results. This,Creative glass tile and ceramictile
tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. in turn, has persuaded the
U.S. Government to significantly increase our resources for joint law
enforcement activities here in Bulgaria.
Fighting crime is a lot
more than just policing. It requires an able and efficientprosecution
service as well as a determined and impartial judiciary. Recent events
have demonstrated that there is considerable interest in Bulgaria in
having a prosecution service and a national judiciary that can truly
uphold the rule of law. And there has been progress in that regard. The
selection of the Supreme Judicial Council as well as the Prosecutor
General involved a serious examination of the credentials of the
candidates and were conducted in a more transparent manner than before,
though there is still room for improvement.That is a machine for
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process. Most important will be whether those selected will institute
needed reforms. There is a lot of work to be done. The U.S. is committed
to assisting Bulgarian efforts to reform the legal system so that the
process of administering justice can be efficient and effective, but
ours is a supporting role - the impetus and energy has to come from
Bulgarians.
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