Bulgaria hosts high-level conference on the next Multiannual financial framework
A high-level conference on “Next MFF: distributive, allocative and stabilization functions” will be held on 9 March 2018 in the National Palace of Culture, Sofia. With this forum, the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU aims to make a smooth transition between the discussion on the next MFF held during the informal meeting of Heads of State and Government on 23 February and the Commission’s proposal for the MFF beyond 2020, which is expected to be published in early May. During the conference in Sofia, the discussion will focus on the MFF in the context of the distributive and stabilisation functions of public finance.
The high-level conference will take place in two sessions and the opening speeches will be broadcast in real time here. The first session is an expert thematic discussion where the main topics will include the appropriate policy mix for effective spending and the possible ways to adjust the current own resources system to the new environment. Participants in the panel will be experts from Ministries of Finance and Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Member States, representatives of the Commission, the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU and leading European non-governmental organisations. The event will be opened by Mr Vladislav Goranov, Minister of Finance and Chair of the ECOFIN Council, and Ms Ekaterina Zaharieva, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The second session of the forum will be a high level political discussion. Opening speeches will be delivered by Mr Tomislav Donchev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria, Mr Guenther Oettinger, Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, and Ms Lilyana Pavlova, Minister for the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The participants in the second panel, who will hold a political debate on the future of EU public finance beyond 2020, will include Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Foreign Affairs from the EU as well as other institutions responsible for the MFF negotiations. The discussions will involve high-level representatives of European institutions, including the Committee on Regional Development of the European Parliament, the European Committee of the Regions, the European Court of Auditors, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria and other leading European institutions and organisations. No press conference is planned after the end of the event.
The event is organised by the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance. More information about the Agenda, an accreditation form and a map are published here.