After Black Sea drone attacks, EU lawmakers head to Sofia and Varna
A European Parliament delegation will assess the situation on the ground, including at Varna naval base, after drone attacks on merchant ships off Bulgaria's coast.
Archive image · Photo: Alexey Komarov / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
A European Parliament delegation is visiting Sofia and Varna to assess the security situation in the Black Sea firsthand. According to the BTA news agency, it includes lawmakers Angelika Winzig of Austria, Sven Simon of Germany and Jacek Protas of Poland. The visit was requested by Bulgarian MEPs Andrey Novakov and Emil Radev of GERB/EPP.
In Varna, the delegation will visit the naval base and the crisis response center of the "N. Y. Vaptsarov" Naval Academy. The lawmakers plan to hold a news conference in Varna on Saturday, Oct. 31.
The trip comes days after an Oct. 22 European Parliament resolution condemning attacks on shipping and calling for EU funding for security in Bulgaria and Romania. On Oct. 28, the container ship Contship Jet was struck by three naval drones about 21 nautical miles southeast of Shabla, according to Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov.