Bulgaria will soon need thousands of highly-skilled engineers in various fields, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov told students at the Sofia Technical University on the school's 65th birthday.

"We are going too far in our desire to produce too many university graduates but oftentimes there is no work for them. Our government is now working on a number of projects, and soon we will need qualified engineers, and will probably even attract engineers from abroad," Borisov told the engineering students.

He explicitly mentioned several large-scale projects in the energy sphere which will need an increased number of engineers in the coming years.

"If I could, I would cover the entire country with wind power parks. Thus, when you go to Northern Bulgaria, it will be like a fairy tale – thousands of wind turbines and red lights. All investors are talking about that – turbines and batteries. And we are letting them in little by little. If we assume that Bulgaria will build Nabucco, South Stream, and the gas pipeline connections to Greece and Turkey, we will be the natural gas center of the Balkans. I am not making this up, we are currently signing the agreements. We are mulling a second nuclear power plant at Belene, and a seventh unit at the first one in Kozloduy. We have projects for thermal power and hydro-power stations," Borisov told the students in the presence of Education Minister Sergey Ignatov, and the President of the Sofia Technical University Kamen Veselinov.

"How many engineers will we need to those projects? I don't know, do you?," he asked the Veselinov.

Borisov pointed out he believed the great weakness of Bulgarian education are the practical internships. In his words, being a qualified worker at some factory in the West is just as prestigious as having a college degree.

"Professor Veselinov and I have this disagreement – the claim that reforms are done in a time of crisis. I am asking my friends when they do repairs at home – when they got money, or when they are in debt?", the PM said declaring that 2008 was the best time for reforms because back them Bulgaria had a budget surplus.