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The President: During the Presidency of the EU Council Bulgaria Narrowed its Horizon and Failed to See What Was Happening to the West of the Western Balkans

The race between the rotating presidents of the EU Council to mechanically close dossiers in conditions of lack of ideas may lead to closing the EU itself, Rumen Radev said

We should not be misled by the compliments Bulgaria received that are standard for any EU presidency – the EU is currently in such a situation  that Brussels can afford only positive evaluations. This is what President Rumen Radev said at the opening ceremony of the conference dedicated to the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU Council. The forum is organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Institute for Economy and International Relations.

The Head of State emphasized that during these six months, events critical for the EU took place. There are centrifugal forces within the Union which call into question its architecture and, according to some European politicians, its very existence, Rumen Radev said. In his words, however, the topic of the EU's future “evaded” the efforts of the Bulgarian Presidency. “My estimation is that Bulgaria confirmed its position of a peripheral, the most peripheral country for the EU both with respect to the structures and with respect to holding the major debate,” Radev said.

The Bulgarian government somehow seemed to wholly pay attention to foreign policy and dedicate itself to the Western Balkans and turned its back on important, highly explosive processes unfolding inside the country, the President said. The President emphasized that the power holders had the ambition to use the EU Presidency for domestic PR purposes and ignored important for our country problems such as education, judicial reform, fighting corruption, attracting investments and stimulating economic growth. “Foreign policy issues cannot possibly legitimize the lack of action regarding the critically important for the Bulgarian society topics. The European idea cannot be used to pursue narrow partisan goals and cannot be privatized. Therefore I think that those in power in Bulgaria should as soon as possible get rid of the euphoria of this artificially created image and should promptly, body and soul, get back to the harsh Bulgarian reality,” Rumen Radev urged.

The Head of State said that he would not like to downplay the fact that during the Bulgarian EU Council Presidency 78 dossiers were closed. However, he noted that “anyway this is ultimately mere statistics.” “The number of kisses and hugs, the number of European leaders that pose at Lovers' Bridge, the hundreds of meetings and prepared documents ultimately remain statistics. What will go down in history is what happened with the Union during the Bulgarian Presidency,” Rumen Radev said.

The race between the rotating presidents of the EU Council to mechanically close dossiers in conditions of lack of ideas may lead to closing the EU itself, the Head of State emphasized. He explained that Europe alone cannot “manage” to follow its agenda and a lot of decisions are neglected, the fundamental one being the Union's future – a problem which requires real leadership.

In Radev’s words, the “Western Balkans” priority was consistently pushed forward. However, in the course of time it was “left behind” in the EU agenda and the focus was shifted on to the migration problem, which puts the EU values to the test. “Migration caused great disparities in the Union which threaten its unity and expose a lot of institutional weaknesses. Therefore although the Western Balkans remained a priority for Sofia, they went away from the focus of united Europe,” the Head of State explained.

The President said that Bulgaria failed to categorically raise the issue of European security, stability and defense capacity and the topic was left to be discussed in a different, much narrower format. “In this respect Bulgaria narrowed its horizon and failed to see what was happening to the west of the Western Balkans,” the President said. He noted that currently new issues and concerns are surfacing related to the relations between Kosovo and Serbia, the situation in the Republic of Macedonia, the real value of the Sofia declaration. “As we remember, a handshake between the presidents of Serbia and Kosovo, not without help, of course, was presented almost as a solution to the problem between Kosovo and Serbia. However, a mere couple of weeks later President Vucic clearly said that a new approach should be adopted in the negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia and without the direct commitment of the US and Russia this problem will not be resolved,” Rumen Radev recalled and added that this is an eloquent assessment of a European mediation.

The Head of State welcomed the signing of the Friendship, Good-neighborliness and Cooperation agreement between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia. However, in his words, first the bilateral relations should have been assessed and it should have been noted that sooner or later an agreement would be negotiated between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece. “We somehow were quick to take the declaration of 1999 between the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria, to change it into an agreement with minor amendments. And if we now compare the two agreements – between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia and between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, we will see considerable differences,” Radev said. He further emphasized that the agreement between Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia is subject to change and denunciation and has a time limit, unlike the one with Greece. “Greece solved the problems pertaining to national identity, history and language at a high political level stipulated in the agreement with uncompromising terms and conditions. In our agreement we left these problems to be solved by the commission that has powers only in the sphere of history, without being able to address political processes,” Radev said.

The President thanked everyone who put efforts in organizing the Presidency and emphasized that in logistic terms our administration managed to tackle all problems and meet their commitments.