President of the Slovak Republic Ivan Gašparovič has held talks with Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria Boyko Borisov in the Presidential Palace.

“The Slovak-Bulgarian relations are very good, building also on our common memberships in the EU and NATO,” the Slovak President said during the talks.

The President emphasised that the two countries needed to engage in a more intensive cooperation at the time of crisis faced by Europe. “Therefore, we also expect our economic and trade cooperation to become more intensive following a meeting of a combined Slovak Economic Ministry and SARIO committee with their Bulgarian partners,” President Gašparovič added. He said that the bilateral trade exchange was steadily increasing and the turnover continuously growing, having reached almost 440 million euro last year.

“There is no other country in the world with which we would have more in common than with the Slovak Republic,” the Bulgarian Prime Minister said at the meeting. “We can see excellent opportunities in cooperating with Slovak businesses to whom we may offer an advantageous taxation system with low tax rates,” he added.

The two officials have also discussed possible solutions to Europe’s debt crisis. “We sure will have to change some basic parameters of the functioning of the European Union, but it will also depend on how we can explain it to our citizens,” the Slovak President said.

Ivan Gašparovič has appreciated that Bulgaria seeks to comply with the Maastricht criteria and not to increase its general government debt; Bulgaria has the second lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of all EU member countries. Bulgarian economy is among the most stable in the Balkan region.