The Annual MRC International Scientific Conference on Economic and Monetary Issues "Europe after the European elections: economic and monetary perspectives" was held in UNWE. The organizers of this fifth-of-a-kind forum were the Monetary and Economic Research Center (MRC) at the Finance Department, jointly with the Union of Economists in Bulgaria and with the support of the French Institute in Bulgaria and First Investment Bank AD.

Prof. Nikolay Nenovsky, director of MRC, opened the conference and reminded of her main idea: to enable young and established researchers to collaborate by exchanging positions, opinions, perspectives and discovering new research topics. He pointed out that the conference is already becoming a tradition.

Assoc. Prof. Petar Chobanov welcomed the participants in the conference and pointed the importance of discussion topics, which aim to outline prospects and new directions for the development of monetary policies in the changing EU environment. He expressed his confidence in the positive results of the forum.

Mrs. Zinaida Zlatanova congratulated the organizers for the good initiative, which provides an opportunity to discuss different points of view on important monetary and economic issues. She expressed the hope that the results of the conference would be useful for the new policies in the dynamically changing EU.

Assoc. Prof. D.Sc. Pencho Penchev pointed out the interesting scope of the discussion topics and as the chief editor of the university magazine Economic Alternatives, he introduced the participants to the possibilities of publishing the conference reports in the edition.

Representatives of the academic community in the field of monetary and economic policy from universities in Bulgaria, the United Kingdom, France, the USA, Russia and others took part in the two-day forum. Discussion topics were organized in five thematic areas: "Monetary and Financial Economics", "International Economics and International Political Economy", "Economic and Monetary History and the History of Economic Thought", "Environmental Economics, Social and Solidarity Economy", "Management and Marketing".