On the 4-th May in Rousse, the president of Bulgaria Rumen Radev welcomed his colleagues – the presidents of Austria and Romania Alexander van der Bellen and Klaus Iohannis.

Van der Bellen and Iohannis were visiting the Danube Town at the invitation of Radev for an informal meeting on “The future of united Europe”. During the meeting, they discussed key topics on the European agenda, which are also among the Bulgarian priorities in the EU Council Presidency.

The meeting in Rousse is also an expression of the political will of the three countries, which will consecutively take over the presidency of the EU Council to ensure the continuity on key common positions on the agenda of the community such as the European perspective for the Western Balkans, energy and transport connectivity in the region.

The city was symbolically chosen, as among the main topics of the meeting was the development of the Danube region, which is of great importance for the connectivity and increase of the economic growth in the EU.

The three presidents walked along the central pedestrian street “Alexandrovska”, led by the Mayor Plamen Stoilov and his deputy Strahil Karapchanski. At the Rousse Museum they took a photo, and then the informal meeting between them began.

Rumen Radev, Alexander van der Bellen and Klaus Iohannis participated in a conference on “Sustainable Development of the Danube Region” at the “Kanev Center” of Rousse University. The forum was preceded by three parallel round tables. The first devoted to the sustainable development of transport and infrastructure in the Danube region. The second related to the sustainable conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the Danube region and the participants in the third round table discussed the sustainable growth of innovation and the economy of knowledge in the Danube region under the conditions of Industry 4.0.

In the course of the conference Professor Daniel Bratanov presented the joint work of the Institute of Metal Science, Equipment and Technologies with Hydroaerodynamics Centre and the Rousse University – underwater robotic system “ARMUS”, whose main objective is to examine of the hulls of large marine vessels for cracks, fogging, the presence of mines and other obstacles to the normal movement of the ship. The feedback from the presentation was exceptional, and the three presidents thought that this product was yet another proof of the high intellect and achievements of Bulgarian scientists for the benefit of all of the human kind.