Mister President, it is a great pleasure to be here with you. First of all, I would like to thank your welcoming here today. We had the opportunity to meet before, not only in Portugal, but many times in the European Council. And now is for me a great pleasure to stay for two days here in Bulgaria.
It is very important for the European Union to bring the institutions close to the societies, to the companies, to the citizens. And Bulgaria has a key role in European Union. Bulgaria achieved recently the accession to Schengen Area and now is in the ongoing process and doing very well to adopt the euro. And I wish you all the best for the coming months and for the next assessment from the European Commission and the ECB about your criteria on inflation. I know that all of us are suffering a lot since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, with the energy costs and its huge impact on inflation in all the different countries. But we are doing all the best, all of us, to control inflation. And I think now it is the main criteria to enter in the eurozone.
The two main priorities for the European Union now are competitiveness and our defence. And these two priorities are interlinked because we need to be safe and secure to create conditions to be more competitive. And we need to be more competitive to improve our capacity to defend ourselves.
I will have the opportunity during my visit in Bulgaria to stay not only in Sofia but to go to Stara Zagora with the Prime Minister and to visit not only defence industries, but also a university. And here in Sofia, an institute which will be one of the six AI factories in Europe. And this is the proof that it is very important, when we invest in defence, we are not only protecting ourselves, but we are also strengthening our industry, our research capacity, our capacity to innovate. And this is decisive for the future, to create better jobs, to have a stronger economy.
And for this, thank you very much again for welcoming me here today, in this my first day of visit in your country.