Should Bulgaria "Take up the White Man's Burden" in the Balkans?

During their recent visit to Brussels, Bulgaria’s President Georgi Parvanov and Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov floated a rather extravagant idea.

Namely, that Bulgaria should be named some kind of a EU hub for the Balkans which entails its being assigned the role of a coordinator of the EU integration of the countries in the Western Balkans.

Needless to say, the proposal for this inspired solution to the EU integration problems of the Western Balkans must have led many people to have a hearty laugh.

Because, while the President and the new Foreign Minister should certainly be given some credit for their spunky, can-do spirit, the mind boggles at the thought of how a country that has come nowhere near resolving its own pressingly grave issues could take upon the job, or indeed the burden, of helping that most troubled part of Europe, the Western Balkans.

What is more, let’s not forget that no country – Western Balkan states included – likes to be patronized the way the Bulgarian President and Minister propose to help.

President Parvanov and Foreign Minister Mladenov come from supposedly antagonistic parties, so they must be finding their brainchild really exciting in order to push for it together.

They have presented their idea of turning Bulgaria into a Balkan hub of EU integration in their meetings with EU Council President, Herman Van Rompuy; EU High Representative on Foreign Policy, Catherine Ashton; and EC President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Even if one puts aside the fact that the Bulgarian leadership should have approached the member states, or at least some of the more powerful ones, because it is these states that are still the key decision-makers of the EU, and not the ceremonial representatives of the common institutions, the Bulgarian initiative still doesn’t make much sense.

Because the fact of the matter is that before going for some grand idea that probably came from some enlightened mind in the presidential administration, Parvanov and Mladenov should have considered the grim reality – namely, that, unfortunately, Bulgaria is a nation which carries very little weight within the EU and on the Balkans.

In this first place, not only is Bulgaria the poorest EU member with a rather questionable model of economic development (or the lack thereof) but it is also facing an increasingly threatening demographic crisis.

Deservedly or not, Bulgaria is known for being plagued by corruption and organized crime (leaving aside the fact that other EU states, including some of the “original fifteen,” have similar issues). Bulgaria is not famous for absorbing EU funding, either – so far, it has managed to put to good use something like 1-2% of all EU funds it is supposed to get before 2013.

Not to mention that Bulgaria is still being closely monitored for its post-accession progress by the EC under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. In this sense, the Bulgarian proposal to take care of the European future of the Western Balkans is like a toddler asking to become the nanny of a newborn.

It is rather curious how the Bulgarian President sees the idea of Bulgaria administering the EU's integration of the Western Balkans: after meeting with Van Rompuy, Parvanov made it clear the work would be spread among Bulgarian institutions; he refused to name any institutions in particular, apprehensive of spurring inter-institutional conflict (??!).

The President seems to be oblivious of the fact that the Bulgarian administration generally has serious deficiencies such as slowness, inefficiency, incompetence. And forget about fluency or even basic knowledge of any foreign languages.

In theory, a country with a larger economy, such as Greece, or with a larger population, such as Romania, would carry more weight for such a task. Of course, not a Greece which is struggling with a devastating deficit and economic crisis; and probably not a Romania, which has issues very similar to Bulgaria’s, and which has had to rely on international bailout assistance...

What could be Bulgaria’s current advantages that in the minds of the President’s advisors might have given rise to the idea that it should be integrating the Western Balkans in the EU?

For one thing, Bulgaria is currently an island of fiscal stability - but this seems to be largely thanks to a number of rather unpopular measures introduced recently by Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Simeon Djankov. At the same time, the Bulgarian economy does not seem to be doing too well, and not only because of the global crisis and the burst of the real estate and construction bubbles.

It just has little to offer in terms of manufacturing and high-quality services, it has a staggeringly negative trade balance, and lacks progress in terms of education and research and development. Not to mention the capacities of the Bulgarian Army, which can probably hardly take on even a gang of armed criminals.

So, since Bulgaria’s overall posture is not so impressive, it is perhaps its relations with Western Balkan countries that should be considered when testing the idea put forth by the Bulgarian President.

However, before anything else, one should just mention that hardly anyone – including countries in the Western Balkans – would be happy with a patronizing attitude of the White Man’s Burden type – especially when it comes from a country with about the same level of economic and political development.

Now, unlike Greece and Romania, Bulgaria has recognized Kosovo. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage? It is hard to say. Certainly, Bulgaria might have the edge in relations with Kosovo but the newly independent republic is ages away from anything like EU membership.

Of course, by recognizing Kosovo, Bulgaria has clearly antagonized Serbia, the largest country in the rubble of Former Yugoslavia, known euphemistically as “Western Balkans". And let’s not forget that, historically, Serbia has preferred to be much closer with Romania and especially with Greece.

The other major Western Balkans country, Croatia, is just about to join the EU, and in many areas it fares much better than Bulgaria.

Macedonia is the obvious other potential EU member from the region. It faces a number of internal issues, and on top of those, it is tangled in a stupefying name dispute with Greece. Yet, most of the power factors in Macedonian society harbor open animosity towards Bulgaria. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro also don’t seem particularly eager to be patronized by an adventurous Bulgaria when it comes to their EU future...

The whole idea that Bulgaria should coordinate the EU’s efforts in the Western Balkans is like a movie that Bulgarians have already seen. It is not unlike the rather empty rhetoric of President Georgi Parvanov and the former government of PM Stanishev, that Bulgaria would become the energy hub of the Balkans – an inspired initiative whose realization has been constantly put off.

Sure, the President and the former government did make some efforts in that respect – they organized a World Energy Summit in Sofia, which was not attended by any really major world leader, and, other than the signing of a non-binding declaration, its greatest achievement was disrupting the traffic in Sofia for two days.

Indeed, the Bulgarian President and diplomats have been active with respect to relations with energy-rich countries in Central Asia and the Middle East. However, the sad and objective truth is that Bulgaria’s capacities at present seem to be too negligible for the country to try to assume any major role in its own region.

I have argued many times in my editorial articles that the EU as a supranational political entity should draw some very important lessons from the accession of Bulgaria in order to apply them in the integration of other countries – such as those in the Western Balkans and former Soviet states. However, that is quite different from saying that a country which has failed to build a single highway for decades should provide others with management experience and governance expertise.

A simple quote by Bulgaria’s great freedom fighter and one of the greatest Bulgarian politicians of all time, Vasil Levski, goes, “Let’s arrange our things internally [within the organization] before asking for the bigger thing.” Perhaps the Bulgarian leaders should finally discover the meaning of this thought.

The simple truth is that all the efforts of the Bulgarian state and nation should presently be directed towards the internal progress of the country, i.e., education, research and development, science, export, high-added value products, and generating economic growth, rather than trying to take up “burdens” that Bulgaria is ill-equipped to handle.

Bulgaria had a great interest in the solving of the problems of the Western Balkans. But it can best contribute to this by aiding some really big and high-profile international effort rather than by putting forth extravagant initiatives of its own.

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