“My thesis is that Bulgaria's acceptance into the eurozone, as well as our Schengen admission a few months before, is a political decision“.
This was announced on the show “Face to Face“ Nikola Yankov, economist and former deputy minister of economy.
„Of course, it would not have been possible if we had not fulfilled the technical criteria for this membership, for which we should be congratulated“, he added.
According to him, Bulgaria is not the most desirable EU member state and our image is not the best.
Yankov recalled that for over 10 years we were prevented from entering Schengen, even though we technically fulfilled the criteria, with political arguments.
„Before the war in Ukraine began, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the project „Europe at several speeds“. In this project, we were a buffer zone. "Bulgarians and Romania were assigned a third category of membership, not even a second," the economist further emphasized.
The change, according to him, comes after Russia's attack on Ukraine and the election of Donald Trump as US president.
“European political elites have proven to be extremely rigid and partially bought by the Russians in recent years. But we are already seeing the beginnings of a new theory - the theory of consolidation, not division into blocs,“ Nikola Yankov also commented.