A Bush in Sofia

As the last stop on American President George W. Bush's European tour, Sofia is the setting of a final showdown about the proposed American missile shield in Europe. Last week, Romanian and Bulgarian ministers proposed joint military manoeuvres to Russia and the United States in an attempt to ease the high tensions raised by the whole missile shield fiasco. Unfortunately, the G8 summit came and went and missile woes are still unresolved.

Now, the Bulgarian government is feeling left out and hopes to use President Bush's visit to Sofia as an opportunity to discuss some key issues. Bulgarian officials fear that much of the country would fall outside of the range of the proposed missile shield, if it is built in Poland and the Czech Republic as proposed. Along with the missile shield concerns, other topics on the table will be the sentencing of five Bulgarian nurses to death in Libya, and the issue of Kosovo. The American president will be meeting with Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev.