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FACTS Post opinions with a wide range of perspectives to encourage constructive discussion.
For Bulgaria to appear on the world map, it is not enough to invent a tourist logo with roses and umbrellas. States gain prestige and friendships when they engage in moral causes, recalls Ivaylo Dichev.
After an unprecedented election campaign aimed at clearly getting the voter out of the ballot box, let’s think ahead. Let’s leave the internal disintegration, let’s look outside.
Bulgaria is isolated
Bulgaria’s most serious problem is its sad isolation, and not just because of the recent European Parliament resolution or harsh criticism from the United States. I don’t know if you realize that we have no real friends in the EU. In Zhelyu Zhelev’s time, we pretended to be French speaking to get closer to the French, but there seems to be no one to believe in. Nationalists remember the military alliances with the Germans in the 20th century, but for them those memories are not the most pleasant and the effect is contrary to expectations. We do not love the Greeks because they exploit us; We despise Romanians because they are like us, but better; we are not anti-European enough for the Visegrad Group.
Our inability to fight the mobility package, attract foreign investment or blackmail North Macedonia says a lot about our outsider status. We sigh that the European agencies passed us by, tomorrow we may suffer from the billions of euros of the Recovery Fund. They don’t ask us, they don’t think about us, and we don’t know exactly what we want.
To appear on the map, it is not enough to invent tourist logos with roses and umbrellas. As in interpersonal relationships, states gain prestige and friendships when they engage in moral causes. Remember how we brutally refused to show solidarity during the refugee crisis. Unlike the Greek neighbors, who showed humanity and reinforced their image as Europeans, a resource that is much more important to them than ouzo and squid. We avoid taking a clear position on the Putin regime in Russia, unlike the also poor Baltic countries, which are closer to Brussels and Washington today, despite their history. Even when we do, it still appears that we are being pressured by the Americans or that the government is playing a pre-election theater, as happened in the last spy scandal. We are neither in the hardening of the Atlantic front nor in the emerging European defense strategy; We probably think we’ve paid off with the ridiculous F-16 deal ordered by Trump. By the way, where are we in the growing conflict between the United States and China? Do we even know who the Uyghurs are and what is happening to their human rights?
Bulgaria can do this, but it is unrealistic
But let’s leave the big politics: we will be neither a bridge to Russia nor a gatekeeper to Turkey, because we are too small and these old empires have more direct ways of communicating with the West. How can we show that we share the values of European civilization?
The green deal gives us a wonderful opportunity to find a place on the world stage, skipping a whole stage of industrial development in which we are falling behind. “Green” means not only giving up carbon emissions, but also betting on a new type of quality of life: simpler, calmer, more meaningful. Smart cities, drone supplies, young people working for distant digital giants in pristine nature.
Bulgaria, in addition to having a wonderful temperate climate, is among the least populated countries in southern Europe, which on the one hand is sad, but on the other hand it can turn into an advantage. Can you imagine the billions that will flow to us, spent on the demolition of the blocks that dot the Black Sea coast, on the removal of fake tourist attractions, on the regeneration of dunes, forests, biological species?
No, I can’t imagine it. Because the Greens in our country have less than 1 percent support and even if we add the recently green MRF to them (which everyone is at war with now for other reasons), there will still not be a critical mass to achieve a change of course. People feel poor and think that ecology is not a resource and an opportunity for development, but an injustice imposed on us by bad guys from Brussels, like a doctor forces us to go on a diet when we are hungry. The feeling of the value of nature comes only when you have lost it, and in our country we still dream of factories and smoking chimneys. In short: they seek the same ecological awareness in Bulgaria as in Germany, for example. Sad but true.
More missed opportunities for the appearance of the European map
I have not heard any pre-election debate on climate change, which we are definitely already feeling: more and more droughts, more and more floods. A country that depends on agriculture must have a plan for what it will plant and how it will water. For many tourists, all the warming is a conspiracy of competitors who want to take away our business. So cut, build hotels, sprinkle artificial snow…!
We could play an important role in Europe as a motorcycle in the integration of the Western Balkans; Mr. Borissov had chosen him and he was admired both at home and abroad. Fitting for this role was not only our central position on the peninsula, but also the hope that we will know its cubes and within we can find the strength to sweep them away. And what happened? Fearing falling from power and being investigated for abuse, the prime minister left the Balkans and clung to his chair. And under the pressure of crutches, he blocked not only North Macedonia, but also Albania and the region, the adoption of which had just been requested by our Western partners. Bulgaria has plunged into the black hole of its own selfishness, saying goodbye, perhaps forever, to its role as Balkan leader. Because being a leader means being generous, understanding others, giving, not just receiving. In a word, we also disappeared from this map.
I’m not just talking about aesthetics and images, but our inability to focus our efforts in one direction. Isn’t it more promising to find our specific role within NATO and become the best at one thing, rather than trying to cover all kinds of weapons? Let’s take economics: what are we better at, at least one brand, one production? Or from my field: universities, science. Is there a force to direct efforts in an area where we can achieve global success?
And then we get mad …
Well no, everyone wants theirs, so we do a little of everything and finally nothing. And then we get mad because no one has heard of us. Hopefully later this year, when the elections come back, we will at least talk, not about the nonsensical bureaucratic word “priorities”, but about where we want to go.
* This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author. It may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and Deutsche Welle as a whole.
Bulgaria
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