Bulgaria’s response to the pandemic, the sluggish vaccination process, the political landscape in the country and its relationship with the EU, and people’s perceptions were some of the highlights of the exclusive interview of deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of the Sofia office Vessela Tcherneva with Albanian Daily News.  

Ms. Tcherneva said that the political landscape in Bulgaria has been fragile during the last year as the response to the crisis was marked by mass anti-corruption protests, and according to her Bulgarians are skeptical about their own politicians, but, however, they remain predominantly pro-European. Speaking of the Conference for the Future of Europe, the ECFR’s Tcherneva revealed that the Western Balkans will not be on the top of EU’s agenda but there will be a number of investment and recovery post-pandemic opportunities, and according to her there was no need for the regional countries to wait for the accession to start fixing things. “The unfortunate Bulgarian veto of North Macedonia demonstrated that blockages can appear from unexpected places and it is better to just stick to their own course.”

Ms. Tcherneva was hopeful that after the general elections in Bulgaria (April 4, 2021) the impasse will be overcome and that the first Intergovernmental conference EU-Albania will take place before the end of the year.

The seasoned Bulgarian diplomat and political researcher Tcherneva, who was the spokesperson for the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the political cabinet of Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov from 2010 to 2013 and she made many business trips to Tirana, but visited Albania as a tourist three years ago. “I realised that many Bulgarians have been there or planning a trip. No wonder, given how beautiful your country is. This will help us get to know each other better,” she said, stressing Bulgaria and Albania don’t have much to argue about, but they have many opportunities:

Albanian Daily News: In the first place, thank you Ms. Director for sharing with Albanian Daily News some opinions of yours and at the outset could you please say a few words on the platform of ECFR Sofia and your main topics of focus?

Director Vessela Tcherneva:The ECFR is a pan-European think tank with a network of offices in 7 European capitals. ECFR's research expertise is centred on five programmes: Africa, Asia, Middle East and North Africa, European Power, and Wider Europe. The Sofia office plays an important role within the structure of the ECFR by conducting research and promoting informed debates for a better understanding of the European foreign, defence and security policies amongst the Bulgarian society. Our office is extensively involved in ECFR’s work on the Western Balkans by providing cutting-edge research on the main developments in societies and geopolitical shifts in this part of Europe.   

- As the pandemic is the main worry in the entire world please how has Bulgaria coped with it and has its membership in the EU made it easier the situation for the people, economy and other aspects of life in comparison with other regional countries like Albania for example?  

- Bulgaria declared a state of emergency on the 13th March 2020 placing it among the countries which imposed restrictions the earliest. This resulted in a relative slowdown of the virus spreading in its initial phase but generally it has since been following the curve as in the rest of Europe.   

The political landscape in Bulgaria has been fragile during the last year as the response to the crisis was marked by mass anti-corruption protests which started in the summer of 2020, worsening situation in the hospitals and increasing criticism of corruption and rule of law decay, including by EU and US institutions, against the backdrop of upcoming legislative elections (scheduled on the 4th April 2021).

Bulgarians are skeptical about their own politicians, but, however, they remain predominantly pro-European, and the EU was viewed as the more reliable source of sustainable measures against the pandemic compared to the government. Since last summer the EU has made a number of financial instruments available to its members in the framework of the regular EU budget (MFF) as well as the Recovery Fund (Next Generation EU). This financial resource is unprecedented in its amount, and it opens huge opportunities if rightly managed. In a crisis like this one, the amount matters and therefore the EU membership is an advantage. Still, as the vaccination process here was not advancing quickly enough, the Bulgarian and 4 other governments expressed dissatisfaction with the EU’s vaccine scheme. Without neglecting the EU's faults in the process, it became clear that adequate administration and governance on national level is a must and the opposite can undermine the management of the pandemic in social and economic terms. We are now in a paradoxical situation to be a laggard in vaccination rates despite the mass vaccine rollout being in place.         

- As I mentioned the links Bulgaria - EU, it is of interest to know the EU perspective of Western Balkans against the background of all countries’ efforts to overcome the disease and its repercussions and the approach of the Union towards enlargement when it is in the process of the scheduled Conference for the Future of Europe?

- The Conference for the Future of Europe is practically a response to the spreading of anti-EU populism among Europeans. It aims at bringing people closer to the EU, which sometimes feels distant to them because of its heavy bureaucratic nature. The goals of the CFR are ambitious, and it is unclear whether the deficiencies within the EU will be successfully addressed in a year. It is important to point that the outcome is highly dependent on the developments in Germany in the fall - and will become part of the election campaign in France next year. The potential success of the initiative will positively affect the attractiveness of the EU itself for the countries from its neighbourhood.  

In the meantime, the Western Balkans will not be on the top of EU’s agenda but there will be a number of investment and recovery post-pandemic opportunities aimed at boosting the economic growth of the region. It will be up to the WB countries to take advantage of them, no need to wait for the accession to start fixing things. The unfortunate Bulgarian veto of North Macedonia demonstrated that blockages can appear from unexpected places and it is better to just stick to their own course. At the end of the day, the Western Balkans will be judged by their own efforts in making the countries a better place for the citizens.

- In the meantime, how would you assess the overall situation in the Western Balkans when the shadows of old conflicts ‘haunt’ bilateral relations between some countries with the sharpest ones between Kosovo and Serbia and the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

- The spread of the pandemic intensified the role of governments whose competences got expanded in all socio-economic aspects. A recent ECFR report finds that the pandemic accentuated pre-existing vulnerabilities in the region related to the rule of law and democratic governance. This is a worrying new trend as the idea of the new enlargement methodology adopted in 2020 is to reward progress and punish backsliding. The interplay between more control in the hands of the ruling parties and long-standing open issues turns into a threat to the Western Balkans countries’ EU integration. It is an unfortunate trend: the EU membership should be the biggest incentive and a driver for positive change in tense bilateral relations, but as it is distant, politicians prefer the short-term gains of a bilateral dispute, which is easily turned into a domestic source of nationalistic campaign.

As we saw, the EU lost some of its credibility in the region. China’s mask and vaccine diplomacy during the pandemic contributed to this. The changing of the guard in the White House calls for an offer for a new transatlantic cooperation in the region. This is most obvious in the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue and on proposing a reformist agenda to de-capture BiH state institutions. Europeans and Americans can work together to find sustainable solutions to these issues to prevent turning the region into a sphere of influence of malign external actors. This can also include strengthened economic and security cooperation.

- As a follow up, how would you describe the relationship of Bulgaria with North Macedonia, and I cannot fail to mention in this frame the experience that the two countries had last year when they co-chaired the Berlin Process Summit?

- The Friendship Treaty signed in 2017 between Bulgaria and North Macedonia is a rational document with great potential. Still, it should have been accompanied by a roadmap and/or a protocol consisting of mechanisms for its implementation. The outcome was wasted years and missed opportunities to fill this agreement with substance by advancing on important topics such as infrastructure, energy, academic exchanges, capacity building, to name a few.

The current argument looks paradoxical against the backdrop of Bulgaria’s previous positioning as advocate of the enlargement process to the Western Balkans. The process became the scapegoat of the governments’ incapacity both in Sofia and Skopje to deal with other pressing internal issues within their societies. The decision caught the public’s attention four months before the general elections in Bulgaria with the use of nationalistic rhetoric and arguments which cannot be subject to the negotiation framework with the EU. This benefits a few political parties in Bulgaria and North Macedonia, whose actions have been rather destructive to the stability and the European perspective of the region.

The Berlin Process Summit highlighted the importance of economic cooperation. The Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans is a good basis for subsequent accumulation of capital investments that can address the direct repercussions of the pandemic crisis and guarantee further economic stabilisation and growth.

- Ms. Tcherneva your CV includes the position of spokesperson for the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the political cabinet of Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov. Given the combination of your current position and the previous one, how would you assess the bilateral relations between Albania and Bulgaria whose people have a traditional bond?

- In the Balkans, often the neighbours of neighbours are friendlier than the direct neighbours. But this is not the only reason why Bulgaria and Albania have such good relations. We don’t have much to argue about – but we have many opportunities. After many business trips to Tirana, I finally visited Albania as a tourist three years ago, and realised that many Bulgarians have been there or are planning a trip. No wonder, given how beautiful your country is. This will help us get to know each other better.

- What do you think of the opportunities of Albania to open its accession talks with the EU when local officials say the set conditions have been met although general elections are expected to be held on April 25 this year. There are indications that the dragging of the process has increased the ‘fatigue’ even among citizens.    

- The fatigue is visible not only within the Western Balkans societies but also among the member states. Bulgaria’s veto on North Macedonia unfortunately put the brakes on Albania’s opening of negotiation talks and this undoubtedly raised concerns over the functionality of the enlargement policy per se. Good news came after the EP plenary vote (March 25, 2021) as it became clear that the process cannot be halted and a prompt solution to the dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia is needed. Otherwise, there is a risk of further deterioration in societal perceptions on the EU. Giving up on the EU perspective of the region can bring more damage than positives – and this is mostly valid for Bulgaria, especially in the current environment of tense intra-EU relations. There is hope that after the general elections in Bulgaria the impasse will be overcome and that the first Intergovernmental conference EU-Albania will take place before the end of the year.

- Please let me turn on the change of power in Washington. First, according to you, which will be the future impact on Europe, particularly on the EU, of the new US administration of President Joe Biden?  Do you think that the Old Continent has the ‘luxury’ of following the confrontational approach aiming at the declared containing of China and Russia with obvious signs of a return to the past ‘Cold War’?

- The election of Joe Biden has a definite positive impact on Europe at least by preventing the cool off of the transatlantic relations initiated by Donald Trump. Nevertheless, the last four years of Trump’s presidency led to fault lines and irreversible trends in Europeans’ attitudes towards the US. An ECFR survey from November last year showed that America was no longer seen as a reliable partner to Europeans who consider the US political system broken. Fixing the relationship will take quite a lot of effort. The presence of Biden at the European Council summit exemplified the willingness of both sides to make these relations healthier.

In the meantime, the difficult relations between the EU and Russia transpired during the visit of HR/VP Borrell to Moscow. It was a clear sign of the increasingly diverging views between the two on basic values such as democracy and human rights. It also showed a lack of Russian interest in maintaining good diplomatic relations with the EU based on mutual respect. Convergence among the member states’ stances on Russia – which obviously lacked ahead of Borrell’s trip, would fortify EU’s efforts to take more assertive positions not only on Russia but also other external actors willing to disrupt democratic processes in EU’s neighbourhood.

The EU-China relations went through major changes in recent years. Europe will have to come up with a firm position on where it stands on China and how it will cooperate with the US against its influence in trade, technology, security, etc. It is yet to be seen how strong the EU-US front on China will be. The EU should be more confident in terms of the conditions that will define this front as the EU-US businesses are heavily dependent on each other.  

On a more regional level, the last summit of the “17+1” initiative demonstrated declining excitement about China’s role in the region. On the other hand, China is increasing its influence in the Balkans not only through economic schemes but also via forging new political and cultural relations.

- To conclude, Ms. Director, which is your feeling about the highly sensitive issue of anti-Covid vaccines in view of rising ‘nationalism’ regarding its distribution? Is the lack of solidarity amidst the international community, in the Union or even in the WB countries a negative signal towards humankind? In this frame how do you see the post-pandemic world order when signs are apparent that there will be a shift of the balances of power?

-The EU should have made an effort to help out the Western Balkans in getting vaccines, at least for those on the front line, like doctors and nurses. It is clear that this is a sensitive issue given the political pressure inside the EU – just look at the declining approval rates of the German CDU, who are seen as being too slow in vaccination. Their problem was that the company that invented one of the vaccines, Pfizer-BionTech, is German, yet the citizens can’t get a hold of a jab. Nevertheless, a certain amount of the doses should have gone to the Balkan countries. The fact that Serbia is now more advanced in vaccination than some of the member states due to the proliferation of various Chinese and Russian vaccines, signifies the EU's slow response. And of course, leaders in the region are keen to dress up any success in political and nationalist rhetoric. However, I don’t think there will be a major power shift based on vaccine diplomacy. The EU remains the main trading partner of the countries, and their best bet for a better future for their societies.