Tackling poverty at European and national level must be a top priority of the European Union, Bulgaria’s Vice President Iliana Yotova pointed out at the conference named "EU: Will the cracks on the facade reach the foundation of the building", organized by the Economics and International Relations Institute and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Iliana Yotova welcomed the EU's decision to allocate EUR 750 billion to help the European economies recover. 

However, the member states must be required to earmark a given percentage of this sum for social policies, noted Vice-President Yotova. Bulgaria should view the Recovery and Resilience Plan not as an absorption of funds, but as targeted policies for development, said Iliana Yotova. In conclusion, Iliana Yotova stressed that the European institutions must undergo the necessary reforms. “Citizens must have the final say when determining the European Union’s policies”, said Vice-President Yotova. In her words, coping with the Brussels bureaucracy is the principle issue on which the future of the EU hangs.