Ekaterina Zaharieva and Julian Popov are the Bulgarian candidates for European Commissioner. They were presented to the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, by acting Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev. This was decided at a government meeting of the IC at the end of last week. Ekaterina Zaharieva was proposed by GERB, and Julian Popov by "We continue the change - Democratic Bulgaria". However, only Bulgaria broadcast two candidacies!? What are we showing with this… Diplomat Lyubomir Kyuchukov, former deputy minister of foreign affairs, spoke to FAKTI.
- Mr. Kyuchukov, Bulgaria aired two candidacies for European Commissioner – of Ekaterina Zaharieva and Julian Popov. Is this good for Bulgaria or not?
- No, it is not good to have two applications. Why? Because Bulgaria will be the only country that gives up its right to a national decision and delegates it to Ursula von der Leyen to choose the Bulgarian European Commissioner. None of the other countries, I repeat none of the other countries, aired two candidacies. And according to the Lisbon Treaty, each member country has the sole and exclusive right to determine its nomination for European Commissioner.
- And the fact that we have a man and a woman as candidates…
- In my opinion, with the current ratio among the candidates, where 3/4 are men, this sharply reduces the chances of a man from Bulgaria.
- And the President Rumen Radev called, if we broadcast two candidacies, they should be from two women, but Dimitar Glavchev did not comply…
- I will repeat myself, but sending two applications is very controversial. This experience was tried at the expense of Bulgaria a year ago, when Ursula von der Leyern also requested two applications, and then Bulgaria for the first time sent two applications to Brussels. It was an experiment, and now an attempt has been made to extend it to all member countries. Unfortunately, only Bulgaria accepted it.
- And in your opinion, did we have any clear vision at all when it came to casting a European Commissioner, because we are doing it at the last minute. And things sounded like out of nowhere?
- It is obvious that we did not have a vision, we did not have a clear policy on the matter. I have repeatedly said that there was drama in our country because there was no politics. This is not a matter of foreign policy, but of state policy, which is a much broader, integral concept of Bulgaria's place in the European Union, of how and where it should seek its niche, in which spheres Bulgaria wants its position to be among the leaders in the European Union, in which areas we believe we would be strong. This is exactly the approach of most countries when they propose their candidates. Many examples can be given. For example, Hungary wanted to become a patron, a mentor to the countries of the Western Balkans on their way to joining the European Union. It is not by chance that they actively worked and got this post in the European Commission in the last mandate, because the Hungarian Varhei was the commissioner there. We see that the Baltic countries were very actively trying to bring to the fore their vision of the EU's relations with Russia as a whole. They achieved this and the Estonian Kaja Kalas was nominated as the Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs. If we go back a little, we will see the same purposeful policy of Poland, which has long sought to establish itself after the large and leading countries of the European Union, alongside Germany, France and Italy. And he was able to achieve this, that Donald Tusk was the president of the Council of Europe for one term. The list could go on and on.
- And from all this what comes out that we are waiting to see what will remain and we will receive it as alms…
- That's how it comes out. At the moment, we are waiting for exactly that, because Bulgaria not only did not try to get a sector that would be interesting for us, but we did not even express interest in any sector. We didn't play our card, as they say.
- And supposedly we are waiting for a profit…
- So we will get something, but on the basis of the remainder. I am very skeptical, to be honest, that what is mentioned in the media, about a department related to regional politics, will be exactly what will be offered to Bulgaria. For months now, Greece has been pursuing a very targeted policy precisely for this sector. He nominated a candidate who is well known both in Europe and in his country precisely because of his rich experience in regional politics. Last but not least, it should be taken into account that Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis led the negotiations on behalf of the European People's Party for the nomination of Ursula von der Leyen for her second term.
- So the Greeks did well?
- No, they just work the way they work.
- Should we have expected some surprise, I mean the name of Ekaterina Zaharieva, after she was proposed by GERB, and we know what the relations between Dimitar Glavchev and GERB are. Did the other candidates nominated by the parties stand a chance?
- In general, there is nothing wrong with the fact that the government tried to do some wider consultations. The problem is when, behind these broad consultations, a kind of evasion of responsibility is observed, because both the right, the obligation, and the responsibility for proposing a Bulgarian European Commissioner rests with the government. The mere proposal of two candidacies is also an escape from responsibility, transferring the final decision to Brussels - and all this is done, unfortunately, for domestic political reasons.
- And now comes the turn of the challenges of the committee interviews…
- I expect that in the committees of the European Parliament there will be very strong attacks on any more vulnerable or not well professionally defended application. And I'm not just talking about the Bulgarian candidate here. The attacks will be along the lines of political families - between conservatives and socialists, “green“ and especially from the far-right, which will practically not be represented in the European Commission. There will be very serious attacks on men - we have already talked about this, there will also be many attacks on professional expertise. And here we again have a problem, because what we have done is to separate the two selection processes - of the department and of the person. In this way, we have practically removed professionalism as a criterion, simply because we do not know what resource we will get. And naturally, we cannot offer a professional, but for an unknown department. And one more thing. When we talk about the portfolios in the European Commission, we have to say that they are of two types. The first ones are related to the community policies of the European Union - agricultural policy, cohesion policy, regional policy, as well as everything related to the functioning of the common market. These are the influential resources. The second type of springs are those that have coordinating functions – where the policy is not of the European Union, but of individual countries. Where each country conducts its own policy, but coordination is sought for the EU as a whole. As examples, these are the proposed new portfolios - housing policy and defense. In particular, the foreign policy of the European Union stands here - it is common, but not community, that is, positions become common to the EU only when all member states agree. And it is precisely in view of the importance of this sphere that efforts are now being made here to remove the right of veto and to switch to qualified majority voting, which is definitely not in the interest of smaller countries like Bulgaria. So the structuring of the European Commission is a complex process that implies active participation and clear priorities based on long-term state policy, and the bad thing is that we don't seem to be doing it.