Sofia: EDP backs BG100 at its first Congress
On 15 November 2026, BG100 (България 100) held its first Congress at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. Speaking for the European Democratic Party, Deputy Secretary General Mark Camilleri Gambin passed on the EDP's warmest congratulations and best wishes for success. He addressed the movement's founders, Dr Kristian Krastev and Professor Nadya Mironova, and the members gathered for the founding moment.
Camilleri Gambin travelled from Malta and also brought the full support of the EDP Secretary General, Sandro Gozi. He recalled that Gozi had warned in Athens a few weeks earlier that democracy and truth “are under active attack across our continent”. BG100 was among the guest parties at the EDP Congress in Athens on 23 and 24 October. The meeting in Sofia was a new step in that relationship.
“Our political systems are buggy”
Camilleri Gambin works in engineering and software, and he drew on that experience. “When a system malfunctions with bugs, you do not rely on empty rhetoric. You strip away the noise, look at the data, and fix the problem with logic and radical transparency,” he said. “Right now, our political systems are buggy. Authoritarians are actively exploiting those issues. They promise sovereignty, but they deliver isolation and dependence.”
The answer, he argued, is to hold truth and action together: “Truth without action becomes resignation, and action without truth becomes populism.” He named the Ukrainian father defending his family, the students marching for justice in Serbia and the citizens demanding change in Albania. “Their fight is our fight,” he said.
A sovereign Europe that can act
Camilleri Gambin restated the EDP's call for a Europe that can decide. “National sovereignty without European sovereignty is an illusion,” he said. “We cannot build a powerful Europe using the rules of a powerless one. We need fewer vetoes, less paralysis, and real courage.” Countries that are ready should be able to move ahead, “in full respect of the minority views”, because “European unity cannot become a prison for European ambition.”
Shared problems, shared solutions
Turning to BG100, he praised a movement that brings “logic to politics”. He said BG100 was showing that “the most effective way to counter populism is to dismantle the complexity and solve the problems that actually matter to your citizens.” He added that the real divide today lies “between those who want to build our common future and those who want to trap us in the fears of the past.”
After the Congress, Camilleri Gambin said the visit had changed how he sees an old saying. “‘We have more in common than what divides us.’ I used to think that was a cliché,” he wrote. “The more I hear and learn about challenges of other countries, the more I recognise our own struggles in Malta.” He gave examples: measuring wellbeing honestly, “not just in the run-up to elections”, and standing up to developers who bend the rules and damage the environment. “Some might see shared problems as a reason to relax and be complacent. I see them as a reason to work harder. When we solve them together, we're not just fixing local issues. We're building solutions for all of Europe.”
He made a commitment to BG100: “You do not have to do it alone. The European Democrats and the Institute of European Democrats are here to support you through it all.”
Defending democracy, protecting the environment and improving people's wellbeing are challenges Europeans can meet together. The EDP looks forward to closer cooperation with BG100 for a stronger, more sovereign and more democratic Europe.
