/ world today news/ While Euroscepticism has been growing for several years in a row in the EU itself, which is “hanging by a thread”, the countries of the Western Balkans (WB) are happy to enter the European trap and are extremely upset that the “old” Europe is seeks to distance itself from the region.
The declaration from the EU-Western Balkans summit (October 6, 2021) again expressed support for the European perspective of the latter, but the enthusiasm is not as in the 2018 EU strategy, a central element of which was “the unconditional orientation of the WB to Brussels in the most sensitive areas” such as foreign policy and energy independence, in exchange for promises of fast membership.
By the way, in the period 2017-2018, such strategies were also developed by the Atlantic Council and Great Britain. Of course, for their realization, “loyal and maximally predictable political elites” are needed.
In the “system of priorities for the Balkans” of the Atlantic Council, the main ones are:
– the permanent US military presence in the region;
– “historical” rapprochement with Serbia;
– restoring the reputation of the USA as a loyal partner;
How? By increasing pressure on countries showing signs of multi-vectoring, first of all Serbia, which should show “greater interest” in joining the EU and NATO. However, Serbia concluded an FTA agreement with the EAEU, which does not give rest to Washington and Brussels.
In July 2018, a WB Summit was held in Great Britain, resulting in the development of the concept “Britain and the Future of the Western Balkans”. The text makes it clear that the United Kingdom is considering “implanting” itself as an arbiter in the region. The very leitmotif of the document is: Britain must continue to promote EU values and institutional standards, both within the Union itself and in bilateral formats; The EU and the UK must not allow local elites to take advantage of the contradictions between London and Brussels. The second long-term imperative is for the US and the EU, through their ‘soft’ power, to ‘increase their support for future regional leaders’. (p. 36)
To put it bluntly, “We do not rule Egypt. We rule those who rule Egypt”. According to one Atlantic Council report, it is a “new social contract” in which governments guarantee investment security to the most powerful corporations, called “the Giants” or “transnational power elites,” in exchange for the right to govern.”1
This is exactly what has been happening in Bulgaria for 32 years. Alternating clientelistic regimes serve corporate interests in exchange for the right to rule and share in the common loot. Just one indicative figure: 43.64% – with so many Bulgarians we are less than those 9 million in 1989! It is as if we fought three wars three times – the two Balkan wars and the First World War, but we gave 10 times more victims – the most of which during the administration of the GERB party-state led by Borisov – a project of the “Hans Seidel Germany” foundation (in end of 2009 – 7,563,710 people – at the end of 2021 – 5,043,186 people).
The damage caused to Bulgaria by Borisov’s rule (2009-2020) is unprecedented in its scale. But he was awkward, only when tried to maneuver between Brussels, Washington and Moscow – advocating on the one hand (at least formally) for “peace, stability and prosperity” in the Balkans, and taking a too evasive position on the so-called “Three Seas Initiative”. On the other hand, helping (yet) to build “Balĸancĸi potoĸ” (Turkish Stream) after failing our participation in “South Stream”. Meanwhile, under the pressure of popular discontent, it also failed to pass the Istanbul Convention and, in the summer of 2020, using the protests, Washington and Brussels withdrew their support for GERB to give it to truly “loyal and maximally predictable elites”. Their task is also it will be to continue the Russophobic policy harmful to the country, to sign without asking (!) new contracts with American arms corporations; expanding the US military presence in the country; the “green deal”; our acceptance into the Eurozone… to the privatization of everything that is left in the Motherland and turning it into a “gunpowder burial”.
But the process of Bulgaria’s degradation began in the 1990s with the membership in the European Community on December 22, 1990 (no consultation, no referendum!) and continued with our membership in NATO (2004) and in the EU – 2007.
Already in 1991-1992, agriculture, considered one of the most modern in Europe, was destroyed. The government of Ivan Kostov (1997-2001) continued with the defeat of the army, industry, health care, and the social security system. 2,200 businesses and thousands of small businesses in the trade and services sector were liquidated. Unemployment is rising sharply, the incomes of 90% of the population are drastically falling. Disasters such as drug addiction and prostitution appear and become widespread. Crime was rampant. Education is in decline. National values are also in decline. The population is gripped by economic and social hopelessness. People of active age are emigrating en masse.
Long-eradicated diseases are resurging to the point of epidemics. Child mortality is rising sharply. Life expectancy is drastically decreasing…
Ten years after the start of the transition, not only in Bulgaria, but in the entire group of countries preparing for EU accession, the level of real GDP produced in 1989 still cannot be recovered.
Within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the most developed countries are the GDR and Bulgaria (whose industry in the 1970s was larger than that of Greece and Turkey combined). In contrast to its previous position vis-à-vis the USSR, which dominates politically, but from the point of view of the structure of economic relations and the standard of living, we have a high level of equality, the country has now been turned into a deep periphery of the EU. Dominant positions are acquired the comprador-mafia oligarchy – belonging to a transnational anonymous class of capitalists who use the region simply to extract resources.
What is the balance sheet from the first 10 years of Bulgaria’s membership in the EU?
Here is the position of the Institute for Economic Research of the BAS on this matter:
Limited sovereignty – economic, political (forced participation in sanctions against other countries; limited choice of internal economic policy; limited options for decision on the construction of the Belene NPP; for the admission of the South Stream gas pipeline, etc.).
Forced shutdown of the Kozloduy nuclear units, despite the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which guaranteed the safety of the nuclear units. The total losses just around the premature closure of the nuclear units are about 10-12 billion euros. (Here I will venture to add that the Kozloduy NPP case study is one of the few attempts by Bulgaria to impose counter conditions to its imposed conditions. But despite all the possibilities (legal, expert, international) that were used to revise the arrangements with the EU and restart the reactors, the reaction of the European Commissioner for Energy Affairs Andris Piebalgs was categorical: “I would not like to see the “Kozloduy” case again on the agenda!)
We pay membership fees (1% of GDP or about BGN 600 million per year). I will add here again that, unlike the European funds, the membership fee is paid immediately at the beginning of each year in cash, while the tranches from the European funds are tied to a number of conditions and heavy admin. procedures and, under conditions, predetermined (unilaterally) by the EC! As for healthcare and high technologies, Bulgaria is not given money. This also applies to the period 2014-2020! Let’s not talk about the vicious practice of distributing the funds to which Brussels turns a blind eye.
The following are: large expenses for migration flows: border fences, personnel, for the current maintenance of migrants (between BGN 600 and BGN 1,000 per month, with an average monthly pension of BGN 330); migrants create religious, criminal, moral and other problems…
Drastic loss of human capital – about 2 million people, including hundreds of thousands with higher and secondary special education, for whose cultivation and education Bulgaria has spent multi-billion costs over the years.
Forced almost complete opening of import and export borders, with low competitiveness, with devastating effects on our economy. Such dramatic economic collapses are hard to find even in countries that have experienced military catastrophe.
30 years ago, the structure of our exports was typical of a medium-developed European country, now it is close to the export structures of many African countries, some of which have an even better export structure than ours.
The most general conclusion: the damage to the Bulgarian people is much greater than the benefits, which practically do not reach them.
1 Phillips, Р. Giants: the global power elite. (Ch. 5 „Atlantic Council“). New York: Seven Stories Press, 2018
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