What Hristo spoke about.

6 Oct

2026

BG Speech

Pilot project on European Schools Alliances and its contribution to citizenship education, democratic competences and European values (debate)

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Madam President, how can a child feel what Europe is? The European Union is felt when a child from Pazardzhik enters a classroom in Spain, when a student from Gotse Delchev works on a common project with a child from France, Poland or Italy, when a teacher from Vidin together with his colleague from a German city do not just read about good practices, but work together. Each country determines its…

18 Jun

2026

EN Speech

International Day of Play: promoting children’s right to play (debate)

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Mr President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, I know a five‑year‑old girl who speaks several languages but, more than anything, she loves to play. On the French island of Réunion, social workers use maloya (traditional music and dance) to help children from disadvantaged communities learn French, connect with each other and stay active. In Bulgaria, my country, children in schools, kindergarte…

17 Jun

2026

BG Speech

Protecting children’s safety and mental health from the risks posed by social media – our duty to act now (debate)

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on behalf of the ECR Group. - Madam President, at the beginning of the last century heroin was welcomed as a medical miracle and advertised as useful and safe, until people were at some point unaware of what it was doing to them. And now we are in the same or similar situation with social media, but instead of a blood sample, the damage is clearly visible in the anxiety, loneliness and inability o…

29 Apr

2026

BG Speech

Roma inclusion, equality and fundamental rights: delivering on Europe’s values (debate)

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10 Mar

2026

BG Speech

European Semester for economic policy coordination 2026 - European Semester for economic policy coordination: employment and social priorities for 2026 (joint debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, for the second year in a row, I am rapporteur for this file, but I still have one problem. If a person in my country, in Bulgaria, asks me how his life is improving from the European Semester, I have nothing to answer him. As rapporteurs, we all achieve our objectives, agree on our priorities, the priorities of our groups and make them part of the final text. But the…

11 Feb

2026

EN Speech

Developing a new EU anti-poverty strategy (debate)

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Madam President, dear Commissioner, the most important element on this strategy is the fight against child poverty. And the most important aspects of this fight are the institutionalisation, as well as the Child Guarantee. If you are a child placed in an institution, you wake up in a building surrounded by other children. Your life is organised efficiently but not lovingly. The adults around you a…

11 Feb

2026

BG Speech

International Day of Education, fighting inequalities in access to education (debate)

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22 Jan

2026

BG Speech

A new action plan to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights (debate)

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Madam President, everything in this discussion is about money. Recently, on my initiative, Parliament carried out a mission to Bulgaria where, together with colleagues, we saw children placed in institutions, with a terrible fate, survivors of violence, children with disabilities. We also saw their educators - the people who take care of them, social workers with salaries of 600 euros per month. I…

17 Dec

2025

BG Speech

The urgent need to combat discrimination in the EU through the horizontal anti-discrimination directive (topical debate)

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Commissioner, another expression that is used mainly by us walking along the corridors of the European institutions – socio-economic discrimination. In simple terms, this is neglect due to poverty. A boy is applying for a job. When they see that he is in cheap clothes, when they find out that he is from a poor neighborhood or God forbid, from the "ma'ala", the conversation ends. There's a girl loo…

26 Nov

2025

BG Speech

EU strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities post-2024 (debate)

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22 Oct

2025

BG Speech

The ongoing assault on the democratic institutions and the rule of law in Bulgaria (topical debate)

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Madam President, honourable Members, honourable Bulgarians, the situation is very clear and not since yesterday. Every single person in Bulgaria knows what this is about. Every single decision-maker in the European Commission also knows what it is about and the results are visible. A deep bow to those of my fellow citizens who are trying with their own hands to solve the problem of Sofia garbage. …

20 Oct

2025

BG Speech

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (debate)

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Mr President, Mrs Mizato, this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty for 20 million children in Europe has started as usual. Placed in an institution or disconnected from the world, or in a Roma neighborhood, or helping their family instead of going to school. For these 20 million children, this day remains just another date on the calendar, and it can't go on like this. Child poverty i…

9 Oct

2025

BG Speech

World Mental Health Day - addressing the socio-economic factors (debate)

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Mr. President, in today's debate on mental health, many true things have been said, but I would like, if I may, to draw attention to one more. Each of us here is chosen by an impressive number of people, and each of us serves as an example to both these people and everyone else. As a person who has used words all his life, I know that they have tremendous power, and therefore I want to pay attenti…

8 Oct

2025

BG Speech

Second World Summit for Social Development (debate)

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More than 1 billion people worldwide live in poverty and half of them are children. I am a man who believes that dignity begins in childhood. If today we do not invest in early childhood development, in schools, in healthcare, tomorrow we will have to invest in prisons, in guards and in social benefits, and pay for lost lives and wasted talent. The European Commission must put the fight against ch…

6 Oct

2025

BG Speech

Intergenerational fairness in Europe on the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons (debate)

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Madam President, on 1 October we celebrate the International Day of the Elderly. From the part of Europe I come from, to tell you the truth, I don't know any old man who's heard of this day, let alone celebrated it. It's not a holiday when you have to choose between buying food or buying medicine. I believe we all understand that we have much more to do to show respect for both the elderly and tho…

8 Jul

2025

BG Speech

2023 and 2024 reports on North Macedonia (debate)

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I am a Bulgarian. I have been to Macedonia many times, long before it took the name North Macedonia. Let my friends in Skopje, Bitola, Ohrid, Strumica know what my friends in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Blagoevgrad know. There are people in politics who are there to do something good, and there are those who are there because they have nowhere else to go. It depends on all of us who we allow to…

8 Jul

2025

BG Speech

State of play of implementation of the European Media Freedom Act in the Member States (debate)

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The European Media Freedom Act was voted in this House over a year ago, but how many Europeans know about it? The truth is, it's not enough. The European Media Freedom Act is like a vaccine that will protect our media against political pressure, impose transparency requirements on who owns them and ensure that state money is not used to fund subordinated media. After exactly one month, on 8 August…

7 Jul

2025

BG Speech

From institution to inclusion: an EU action plan for deinstitutionalisation, family- and community-based care (debate)

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Mr. Chairman! Summer has come and each of us with a phone in hand checks the prices of airline tickets, looks at nice beaches and looks for new interesting places. And I wonder how many of us in this room ask ourselves the question, do the children placed in homes do the same? When you take your children on vacation, you give them parental affection, but also something else important. You give the…

2 Apr

2025

BG Speech

Delivering on the EU Roma Strategy and the fight against discrimination in the EU (debate)

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Colleagues, making the first heart transplant in the Balkans, creating a modern hospital with your own efforts and saving hundreds of lives – this is the story of a child born into a poor Roma family in a poor Bulgarian city. This is the story of the great and world-famous cardiac surgeon Professor Alexander Chirkov. No child will have such a story if they do not have access to education. No child…

2 Apr

2025

BG Speech

Topical debate (Rule 169) - Social Europe: making life affordable, protecting jobs, wages and health for all

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Mr President, my fellow Members, since I have been in this Parliament, I hear the magic words ‘competitiveness’ and ‘defence’ every day. And we hear them today in the debate on social Europe. It is imperative that the European Child Guarantee is present in this debate. This is the most important tool to tackle child poverty. Investing in the education and health of Europe's children is one of our …

13 Mar

2025

BG Speech

European Schools Alliance: potential to achieve the European education area by driving innovation, enhancing mobility and championing inclusivity (debate)

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Mr President, do you know what is the most important thing I have learned in recent years while helping children and young people, many of whom are disadvantaged. They can, they have the talents and the desire. What they lack is opportunity. You just have to give them a chance. They have all the qualities to succeed, and their potential and desire surpass our rhythm. In order to meet their potenti…

12 Mar

2025

BG Speech

Union of Skills: striving for more and better opportunities to study, train or work in the EU and to bring our talents back home (debate)

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Colleagues, there are still children in Europe who do not know how to read, write and think, not to mention their skills in chemistry, physics, biology, and until we take care of them, how can we talk about a competitive Europe? I am glad that the Skills Union first offers a financial support scheme for children and young people who have problems acquiring these skills. We also need to further dee…

12 Mar

2025

BG Speech

European Semester (joint debate)

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Ms Mizatu, the European Social Semester must be a tool to achieve our 2030 targets on employment, skills and poverty reduction. I put our children first because they are our future. We need to adopt a special budget for the European Child Guarantee. Children must also be an integral part of the European Union's new anti-poverty strategy. For people with disabilities, we propose the creation of a E…

12 Feb

2025

BG Speech

Honouring the memory of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová: advancing media freedom, strengthening the rule of law, and protecting journalists across the EU (debate)

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Madam President, the first newspaper in Europe was printed more than 400 years ago here in Strasbourg. It's a good thing we're having this debate here. With this debate, we honor the memory of murdered journalists. There are places in Europe where it is easier to kill all journalism and replace it with poisonous doppelgangers. Therefore, it is very important from this tribune to say the following:…

28 Nov

2024

BG Speech

Strengthening children’s rights in the EU - 35th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (debate)

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Madam President, in my country, Bulgaria has thousands of children placed in institutions called FTCs. The situation is similar in Romania, Greece and other European Union countries. When I meet these children, they often ask me what is the relationship between resolutions, conventions and what is going on in our lives. Because while the convention promises us access to education, reality guarante…