"Bulgaria must enable our allies to help us strengthen the security of the Black Sea basin through intelligence assets and kinetic actions." This was stated by Defence Minister Todor Tagarev at a meeting with Bulgarian military attachés, in the presence of Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov, the Chief of Defence Admiral Emil Eftimov and and the Head of Military Intelligence General Venelin Venev. 

According to the Minister, this objective must be achieved even if the Montreux Convention prohibits warships from countries outside the Black Sea basin from remaining deployed there for more than 21 days. Todor Tagrev went on to say that Bulgaria must ensure an outpost for its NATO allies on its territory, and that the Multinational Grouping must be transformed into a brigade.

For his part, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said that for a long time Bulgaria had been sending out mixed signals to its NATO and EU partners, which had divided society to the point of creating a problem for national security. "By distorting and misrepresenting certain historical facts in order to create social tensions, we are still unable to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by our membership of NATO and the EU," added the Prime Minister.