Bulgarian Parliament Approves Use of Military in Border Security

The Bulgarian parliament on Thursday approved the deployment of the country’s military to assist in securing the country's borders amid the ongoing migrant crisis, local media reported.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The legislative amendment that forms the legal basis for the move was approved unanimously by all 137 lawmakers present, The Sofia Globe news website reported.

In the near future, the Bulgarian Cabinet is expected to assign tasks to the military and decide on the amount of money to be allocated to support their participation in border controls, according to the news outlet.

In turn, the Defense Ministry is expected to determine the rules for the use of force in carrying out these tasks.

On Wednesday, the Western Balkan states, including Bulgaria, met for the "Managing Migration Together" conference in Vienna to discuss border control, information exchange and combating human smugglers.

The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people leaving conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa for Europe.

Bulgaria is often used by refugees as a transit route to wealthier EU states, which prompted it to build fences on some of its borders. Some 30,000 migrants arrived in Bulgaria last year, which is triple the total number of refugee arrivals to the country in the years 2013 and 2014 combined.