Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
The invitation of US President Donald Trump to President Rumen Radev Bulgaria to join the Peace Council he initiated is significant – he is seen by Trump as an ally for his personalized diplomacy and reaffirms the image of a “peacemaker”, which he has chosen himself. The presidential institution made the slander public after Radev had already announced his withdrawal from “Dondukov” 2 to enter politics. Thus, they emphasized the personal nature of the invitation, since the Council – or the Peace Board, is actually the Club-of-those-invited-by-Trump.
The invitation will also be read as a sign by pro-Trump groups in Bulgaria. Their scope is wide, including national-conservative, Eurosceptic and anti-system voters attracted by Trump as a destroyer of the “liberal order“, opponents of the Green Deal, etc. With this gesture, Radev also receives legitimacy from the American president, although he has not been to the fireplace in the White House twice, as GERB leader Boyko Borisov often boasts.
What is the Trump Board
Trump's new international initiative is presented as a key mechanism for managing Gaza after the war, but also with the ambition to engage in other conflicts. The format is the second stage of the US president's 20-point plan for Gaza, and Bulgarian diplomat and member Nikolay Mladenov was appointed as the High Representative of the Peace Board. His task is to manage the transition from Hamas rule to the future governance of Gaza.
Trump will personally and for life chair the Board, whose leadership includes high-ranking US officials and financiers. For the US president, this experiment is a “bold new path to resolving global conflicts”, while in Europe there are fears that it could undermine the work of the UN. Former German Foreign Minister Analene Baerbock, who chairs the UN General Assembly, said the UN was “under open attack.”
For years, Trump has criticized the organization as ineffective, dominated by bureaucracy and “double standards,” whose decisions can be vetoed by any of the five Security Council members.
In addition to the UAE and Israel, his invitation to the Board was accepted by Argentina, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Vietnam, Belarus, Kosovo, and other countries from the more than 60 invited. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who is also a close ally of Russian President Putin, signed the agreement in front of cameras, saying he hoped it would contribute to peace in Ukraine.
A new Eastern Bloc in the EU?
Hungary is the only EU country to have accepted the invitation to participate, which is not surprising given Prime Minister Viktor Orban's warm ties with Trump. In Bulgaria, two leaders stand out for their good communication with Orban - Radev and Borisov. Paradoxical, since the Hungarian prime minister is a symbol of what Radev claims to be fighting against in Bulgaria - corruption, backroom deals, a conquered state.
The domestic political situation pitted Borisov against Radev, who declared himself against the "vicious governance model that has the outward signs of democracy but functions according to the mechanisms of oligarchy". His pathetic last speech as president does not reveal the party platform, while his foreign policy line is significantly clearer and more consistent. He was skeptical about the introduction of the euro and called for a referendum, although he later softened his tone so as not to step into the shoes of “Vazrazhdane”.
In 2023, at meetings of the European Council, Rumen Radev expressed disagreement with European support for Ukraine – a position in which he coincided only with Orbán. (But, in the end, he still supported the Council's conclusions.) Radev's views on peace in Ukraine are more similar to those of Putin than to Brussels. A victory for his formation in the early elections in the spring would strengthen the Eurosceptic club in the EU, composed of countries from the former Eastern Bloc – Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary (although sociological surveys indicate that Orban may lose the elections on April 12 this year).
For voters, such "emancipation" from Brussels is packaged in a softer version of the radicalism of the leader of "Vazrazhdane" Kostadin Kostadinov - as an opportunity for Bulgaria to defend, together with other "relatives" from the former Soviet space, a more independent position in the EU. The countries in this old new format are governed by leaders who present themselves as people's leaders against foreign elites, but are accused of authoritarianism, building powerful business networks and a pro-Russian orientation. Analysts such as sociologists Andrey Raichev and Kancho Stoychev are already pushing the thesis about the new "independents".
“In Eastern Europe, there is a process of emancipation - from being a servant of Western Europe, from being given crumbs from the table, from being told “shhsht“ and being told to shut up”... And Radev is above all that”, said Raichev on bTV. Speaking to the Bulgarian National Radio, Stoychev said that “Eastern Europe is the progressive part of the EU” and “with Radev in politics, Bulgaria will return there”. But Kancho Stoychev also admitted something else - that after the elections, the possibility of Borisov partnering with Radev is greater than with the PP-DB. In an interview with “Capital”, given before the president's speech, Borisov said that he has “more faith in Radev than in PP-DB”.
Where are the red lines
In general, GERB is rather cautious and evasive towards Radev's upcoming “jump”. Borisov, who six days ago compared him to a “cuckoo clock”, now comments that his statement sounds “ridiculous”, since it was GERB that led Bulgaria to “the heart of Europe”.
However, Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev criticized Radev for his refusal to take a position on the invitation sent by Trump - “because he is embarrassed to tell the Bulgarians in which part of the foreign policy spectrum his future political project is positioned”. The presidential institution announced the invitation only yesterday, after it became clear that Georgiev and the resigned Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov were traveling to Davos.
But it is not difficult to calculate Rumen Radev's foreign policy coordinates, since his profiling in 2016 by the o.z. Russian general as a presidential candidate, through the remark about the Russian ownership of Crimea annexed by Moscow to his opposition to liberal values and the euro. He positioned himself as an opponent of the Istanbul Convention and did not veto the legal changes prohibiting "propaganda of non-traditional sexual orientation" in schools, despite the call of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty to veto. And the topics of media freedom and the rule of law, which he barely raised in his first term, faded in his second.
The president is trying to seize moral superiority on the topic of fighting corruption, pointing out in his speech that "the combination (the PP-DB and GERB-SDF government, supported by the DPS led by Peevski, b.a.) has finally erased the difference between corrupt people and those fighting corruption, between legality and lawlessness". At the thousands of protests in December against the backstage in Bulgaria, however, young people also carried posters: "Rumen, don't lick yourself! We hate you so much too!" This is not Moscow!”.
How did the PP-DB react
The reactions of the PP-DB coalition to the president's decision vary in tone and sharpness, but overall they seek to mobilize a pro-European electorate and provoke a clearer positioning of Radev. The most moderate are in “Yes, Bulgaria”, who reiterated the priorities from which they will not back down: dismantling the conquered state and guaranteeing Bulgaria's European path and the collective security of the EU.
Their partner in “Democratic Bulgaria” -DSB, is significantly sharper, defining Radev as a competitor and speaking of the risk of splitting the anti-corruption consensus “along Russian lines”. And in “We continue the change” the starting point is “strong Bulgaria in a strong Europe”, but the leader of the PP Asen Vassilev publicly asked whether this is what Radev wants or “Bulgaria according to the Orban model, which would play the role of “Trojan horse” in the EU and hinder its integration”.
The Russian state agency TASS quotes unnamed experts according to whom “Radev's decision to join the election campaign as a political leader is almost the only opportunity for the country to get out of the crisis”.
However, the “Trojan horse” in the EU has not yet been assembled.