In its position regarding the revelations of the German authorities that the drone with explosives discovered in August near the Leipzig-Halle airport was part of a Russian sabotage operation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria assured that our country stands in solidarity with Germany and that “hybrid attacks against our partners and allies are unacceptable“. According to the deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Policy, Vesela Cherneva, however, this position does not convincingly demonstrate the desire of the authorities in Sofia to contribute to common security and does not send an appropriate signal to investors.
„Bulgaria is the only country in the European Union that did not mention Russia in its position regarding what happened in Leipzig“, Cherneva noted in the program „Saturday 150“.
„Why is this important? First, because Germany gave itself a lot of time to investigate who was really behind the drone with the explosion near the Leipzig airport, just days before very important elections in one of the East German provinces. This is perhaps the most classic manifestation of hybrid warfare. An attack, regardless of whether it results in an explosion or not, creates a lot of tension, a lot of division, a lot of polarization in society. And political forces that sympathize with Russia benefit from this.“
„The fact that Bulgaria did not mention Russia, despite the apparently sufficient evidence that the German government has, was clearly noticed in the German media. And here we are talking in general about the ability of the Bulgarian state to participate with its institutions in a security and defense policy and the desire of Bulgarian politicians to participate in such a common European effort“, she pointed out.
“When we do not announce who is behind the attack in Leipzig, when we do not announce who is behind the attack and sabotage of the warehouses near Tryavna, this makes, of course, every investor much more cautious, because he understands that Bulgarian institutions, Bulgarian politicians do not share the same standards and the same protocols in terms of protecting public security“, added Cherneva.
In his statement to parliament on Friday, Prime Minister Rumen Radev spoke of the desire of the “collective West“ to achieve “conventional“ victory over Russia, given that it cannot withstand its hypersonic weapons.
„This is indeed a phrase that is mainly used by the Kremlin, but it is also a phrase that puts Bulgaria back in the position of the 90s, when we talked about equidistance“, commented Cherneva.
„This position is not the position of a member state of either the European Union or NATO. And in this sense, it is, of course, a continuation of all the actions that this government has taken since it has been in power. And the exit from the coalition of the willing, the non-participation in the B-9 declarations, the demonstrative removal from the sanctions lists of individuals for whom the European Commission had given hundreds of pages of justification why they should be sanctioned as part of the Russian military effort. This is a line of thinking and a line of behavior that, unfortunately, is actually pulling Bulgaria back a few decades.“
For both Bulgaria and Slovakia, the main question at the beginning of the debate on the next EU budget framework is how to modernize their economies with European funding, Cherneva noted.
“Radev was talking about industrial cohesion, to emphasize that Eastern Europe's backwardness in terms of industry must be caught up. But for me, the most important question is how practically focused we can be when we talk especially about defense and modernization, considering that Bulgaria does not participate in the major forums for the European defense industry. Radev did not go to the NATO industrial forum in Ankara. It seems that investments like that of “Rheinmetall“ are being questioned,“ she said.