The leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and former PM Sergey Stanishev has welcomed fellow Socialist, Greek PM George Papandreou with much praise.

In addition to being leaders of the respective socialist parties, the BSP and PASOK, the two politicians met in their capacity as members of the international Socialist movement – Stanishev as the head of the Foreign Policy Network of the Party of European Socialists, and Papandreou – as the President of the Socialist International.

Greece’s Prime Minister Papandreou was in Bulgaria Tuesday for the first ever joint sitting of the governments of Bulgaria and Greece.

During his meeting with Papandreou, Stanishev outlined two major differences between the current political situations in Bulgaria and Greece, which he interpreted in favor of the Greek Cabinet.

In his words, the PASOK government in Greece inherited a very severe crisis upon coming to power from the previous right-wing and conservative Cabinet, including a public debt of 115% of the GDP, and a 13% budget deficit.

“In contrast, the Bulgarian government of the GERB party inherited a public debt of under 15%, and a fiscal reserve of BGN 8 B, which still allows the people to do relatively well in a time of crisis despite the totally wrong economic and social policies of the Cabinet,” the BSP leader told Papandreou.

The second important difference, according to Stanishev, is the fact that despite its unfavorable heritage the government in Greece is firmly determined to conduct unpopular reforms, while the Borisov Cabinet only cares about the local and presidential elections in 2011.

Both Stanishev and Papandreou vowed to boost the cooperation between between their fellow socialist parties.

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