Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev is visiting Paris today, the Council of Ministers informs.

At 14:30h today Stanishev will meet with French president Nicholas Sarkozy in the Elysees Palace. They will discuss the cooperation between France and Bulgaria within the EU. As you know France took the EU presidency on July 1.

Stanishev and Sarkozy will sign an agreement for strategic partnership. The paper concerns issues related to political partnership in the EU, economic partnership, defense, security, immigration, culture, education and sciences.

The governments of both countries undertake to create the optimal conditions to use the potential for cooperation in the sphere of economy and to encourage large export oriented investment projects in areas such as machine building, telecommunications, technologies etc.

Bulgaria and France will intensify cooperation in the fight against global dangers such as terrorism, distribution of weapons of mass destruction, organized crime etc.

The two countries will also launch educational projects in compliance with the criteria of the Lisbon Treaty, encouraging the study of Bulgarian and French language in the countries, as well as for the popularizing of the cultural and historical heritage of each country.

PM Stanishev will return to Bulgaria tomorrow evening. PM Stanishev will be accompanied by the Minister of European Affairs Mrs. Gergana Grancharova, by the chairman of the National Security Agency Petko Sertov and economic advisor Dragomir Stoynev.

During PM Stanishev's working meeting abroad, his functions in Bulgaria will be performed by deputy PM Ivaylo Kalfin.