PM Yanev: We need dialogue and to build joint future based on joint interests
Sofia, 17 June 2021 (MIA) - The European perspective of North Macedonia and Albania has never been disputed and Bulgaria has been always supportive, Bulgarian Prime Minister Stefan Yanev says in an exclusive interview with MIA.
He says that Sofia's position involving the European integration process of the country is clear and affirmed by the Bulgarian Parliament in the autumn of 2019.
Yanev also says that the two governments need to sit down for pragmatic talks over what can be done to reach a solution.
“Historians are people of science, and people of science should only deal with science, prove their theses, and of course, on the basis of facts and evidence and with the necessary seriousness and responsibility. But they are not to be leaders in politics, because politics is the responsibility of governments. Politics is the responsibility of the executive branch, which responds to the needs of the citizens. The needs of the citizens are defined through voting in elections, i.e. the solution to this issue is in the political life and in the governments of the two countries,” Yanev tells MIA adding he is glad to be welcoming PM Zoran Zaev in Sofia in Friday for official talks.
According to Yanev, the implementation of the Friendship Treaty is slow, while the joint Macedonian-Bulgarian Commission for Historical and Educational Issues has not achieved anything.
Following is PM Yanev's interview with MIA in full.
Mr. Yanev, thank you for this interview, the first one for Macedonian audiences, for MIA. Yesterday (Wednesday), I believe marked one month since the caretaker government took office. How would you define Bulgaria today in one sentence?
It’s little over a month. The caretaker government was appointed on May 12 by President [Rumen] Radev. Taking into consideration the fact that a government is given 100 days as part of democratic traditions, we decided to hold a briefing to point out, shall I say, what we inherited and the basic things we will focus on in the next days and months by the end of the term of the caretaker government. Of course, we have a series of remarks about what we inherited.
Here, in the Balkans, we are never satisfied with our governments. Our people have demands and are constantly criticizing governments. I don’t know if it is the same in Macedonia, but in Bulgaria people love criticizing, but they seem to forget that they have a responsibility when they vote, a responsibility towards the parties. They shouldn’t have to wait for the parties to tell them what kind of programs they have, they have to call on them to work in the interests of the people and to call on the intuitions as well.
From this point of view, our remarks target the institutions. What we came across is that they don’t work with a vision and towards social interest, the interest of the people. Decisions are made by a closed circle of people whose accountability is unclear. Oftentimes, some of the solutions seem to have been made for PR purposes rather than to solve the problem needed solving. From this point of view, we are critical of what we inherited.
At the same time, we’re trying to lay the foundations of what is to come in the future. Namely, this government has the inevitable task of preparing the July 11 elections and we are fully committed to that. The second task is to show another way of running, of managing the institutions that work in the interest of the people and to establish this type of political responses to remind people that they, too, have the responsibility and that in addition to voting, they also have to be critical, constructively critical of the institutions.
The easiest thing to do is to criticize…
It’s true, we all love to criticize.
Absolutely. The hardest thing is to find solutions, however you don’t have much room to implement programs. Promises are one thing, but what have you come across, what you inherited from the previous government?
We inherited what I just mentioned. A type of governance that wasn’t transparent and clear for the people. To put it simply, whether government solutions were reached to truly solve issues or was it just an illusion, a public communication that the issue was solved here and now, but the reality was that the issue remained the next day unresolved. It’s true, the room we have is limited, but we tasked ourselves with showing the society that if we focus on people-oriented policy-creating, we’ll mark the start of such behavior of the Bulgarian parties vying to join Parliament and form the new government after the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
Your predecessor Borissov has recently said that you have in fact dismantled everything they had done over the years. He also said that in the relations with Macedonia, you have also dismantled more than what you have done for the future.
It’s probably a common political discourse, predecessors criticizing their successors and successors criticizing the predecessors. To make a comparison – we’ve done something in one month or 35 days. These 35 days cannot be compared with Borissov’s term of 12 years. Evidently, we cannot change anything drastically in 30 days something that had been built for 12 years.
You met with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, next you will meet with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev. What message are you conveying to your partners?
I’m glad that PM Zaev will be our guest in Sofia together with his delegation and that we’ll be able to see each other as friends, as neighbors and as neighbors and to sit down and talk about the things that depend on us. In practice, the relations created between the Republic of North Macedonia and Bulgaria in the past at least four-five years have been inherited. You know, the Friendship Treaty was signed in 2017, which should serve as the instrument to accelerate the European integration process of Macedonia.
Unfortunately, and I’m not blaming only one side, both sides are to blame because the Agreement, no matter how well-intentioned it is, fails to predict the necessity of some clear mechanism to assess the progress made in terms of the issues the Agreement should close. At the moment, we are not in a situation to seek solution when one side is making the impression that Macedonia is the victim here of Bulgarian persistence, of the Bulgarian position, which probably hadn’t been explained enough either to the Macedonian society or to the Western European countries, the European Union to be exact.
The situation we’re in now is this – Bulgaria’s position is clear. It was affirmed by the Bulgarian Parliament with the so called 2019 Framework Position. The Bulgarian government in late 2020 presented concrete proposals to the Macedonian government of what the potential way out of the situation might be.
After I’ve spoken with Mr. Zaev several times over the phone, at the coming talks we’ll have the chance to discuss in-depth all these issues and the potential solution of these issues standing between us. As regards the European Union, I’ve realized from talks with EU officials and ambassadors that the Bulgarian position hasn’t been elaborated well enough. It’s evident that it hasn’t been elaborated because they have been pointing out the necessity if how vital it is to couple Macedonia and Albania in the European perspective. It is a policy Bulgaria has been supporting for years.
The European perspective of North Macedonia and Albania isn’t disputable. It is a fact. Bulgaria has always been supportive. What’s the situation like now? As a result of this diplomatic, I wouldn’t say pressure, the insisting that we should hurry and act, the Bulgarian society sees it as pressure. The Bulgarian society isn’t tolerant of pressure, because we’ve been talking about values, and the Macedonian society should be well aware of this, because it is you who are striving to join a society of common values – the European Union is a society of common values. Each nation is part of the large European family. It’s no good that the Bulgarian people are feeling under pressure from other political influences, from other governments, because it undermines the principle of solidarity in all European societies. We are part alongside all European citizens.
At the recent NATO summit in Brussels, US President Joe Biden said that we are all partners – including Bulgaria and North Macedonia – in NATO. According to the one for all, all for one principle, we have to support each other. Biden also said we all have to learn to abandon cheap populism, which can be found everywhere, in America, in the Balkans and Europe. It is all in the context of the readiness of the Macedonian citizens and of the Bulgarian citizens to adopt European approach not under pressure, but as a practice. Is this the way to receive these messages?
I understand, the answer has two recourses. Firstly, let’s look at the Balkan recourse before looking at the assistance from abroad. I’d start with the assistance from abroad. President Biden has the right to extend a message as he looks at things. I’ve worked a lot with Americans and I’m familiar with their way of thinking and acting. They are pragmatic people and it is the way it should be because NATO and the EU are basically communities of common values. From the point of view of values, President Biden has the right to say find an agreement quickly and cut it out. From the point of view of average Americans, the river Danube and Nile are very close, if you know what I’m trying to say.
In the Balkans, we share joint history and we share a common space with similar state of mind and behavior of the people. This also includes the fact that many people in the Balkans have mixed families and relatives in different countries. Our joint past, and to an extent our present, suggests that we in the Balkans should also think about a joint future. It means that it is in Bulgaria’s interest Macedonia’s interest to develop and vice versa. Our citizens have interest in our joint development. Without naming any neighboring countries, but more or less we are live in an ethno-cultural environment that is very close regardless of our differences. We do have differences, which is ok.
In this respect, messages coming from abroad could serve as a catalyst. But, they cannot tell us how to solve our problems. We need to sit down and understand each other. We need dialogue, we need to understand our relations and what we can to achieve in the interest of our citizens. Based on these joint interest, we should build a joint future.
Could you define at what point the Republic of North Macedonia should give in and where the Republic of Bulgaria should give in, too, in the interest of the future?
I don’t want to undermine the talks, especially not through a Macedonian medium to tell PM Zaev what he should expect once we sit down for talks.
The media are always the first ones anyway.
I don’t want it to be that way. It’s a good thing to first see each other in person and tell each other the things that are important to us. I’ll tell you this again – it is important for our citizens, they are our allies, we work for them. Solidarity, one of the joint values shared by the EU, is among all citizens. But, first and foremost, every country is responsible before its own citizens. Before our citizens, we cannot make more compromises than what Parliament has allowed, more than our citizens have allowed us. In this regard, we are completely responsible of sitting down in a pragmatic manner with the government of North Macedonia to work on options of how to find a way out of this situation, pragmatically and quickly. We have proposals, I guess the Macedonian side proposals will put forward its own proposals. In the near future, we will hopefully have a Parliament in late July, early August after the July 11 elections. If we’ve done something during the term of the caretaker government, Parliament would affirm it or not and to move forward.
Referring to the Balkans, you mentioned differences and similarities. According to the President Biden’s order, the United States will seriously react to acts of violations of the agreements, including the Prespa Agreement, the Treaty of Dayton, the Ohrid Framework Agreement, and to violation of democracy. Do you recognize anybody in this context in the Balkans?
You mention the agreements, but there is not a single agreement that excludes a country. I’ll tell you once again about the ordinary Americans – the countries in the Balkans for them is a region somewhere in Europe. All the things mentioned from this point of view, purely politically, probably in the future might be realized one way or another at political level. We are yet to see which way because we don’t know the details taken into consideration by the US administration.
In the context of the Macedonian-Bulgarian relations, was it wrong to have left these good neighborly relations primarily to the historians, who have more successful in demonstrating declarative commitment instead of constructiveness. Was it supposed to be the main thread of the bilateral relations of seeking solutions?
Historians are people of science, and people of science should only deal with science, prove their theses, and of course, on the basis of facts and evidence and with the necessary seriousness and responsibility. But they are not to be leaders in politics, because politics is the responsibility of governments. Politics is the responsibility of the executive branch, which responds to the needs of the citizens. The needs of the citizens are defined through voting in elections, i.e. the solution to this issue is in the political life and in the governments of the two countries.
This is exactly my appeal, that the governments sit down and discuss pragmatically about what can be done. And, I’m glad that Zaev will be our guest tomorrow (Friday). Because, even with all the good will expressed during the signing of the Friendship Treaty in 2017, it’s obvious that its implementation is not taking place. This is the fourth year since the Treaty has been signed, and we have made no progress.
We said the Commission should have achieved something, but it’s obvious it hasn’t achieved a thing. It was clear this would happen the first, second year. Will we wait five more years for the Commission to achieve something. It’s not realistic in my opinion.
Perhaps more attention should have been paid to what would mean more to the citizens of the two countries. Maybe, more efforts should have been paid, for example, in Corridor 8.
Corridor 8 is another painful issue, which is why I’ll say that in the Balkans what we have in common in history will open doors into the future. We share joint interest and Corridor 8 means connectivity, both politically and economically. The more we are connected economy-wide, Bulgaria, the Republic of North Macedonia, Albania, Italy even, the more developed we’ll all be. Developed economy always provides better conditions for the development of countries.
Your approach to the fight against corruption has been relentless.
Corruption is omnipresent and Bulgaria is no exception. We became known for the Magnitsky Act and the sanctions introduced by the US government against certain Bulgarian individuals and companies. Practically, the act shows that corruption in Bulgaria has spilled over the national borders, which is embarrassing as it also reveals the gravity of the issue we are facing. The core of the issue is not only corruption as a phenomenon, which is spread everywhere in all countries, but also the fact that Bulgarian judiciary bodies in charge of fighting and curbing corruption have failed to tackle it. They have done almost nothing at all.
And banks have halted actions according to the Global Magnitsky Act?
Yes. Once we got the signal on June 2, the decision of the US government, the caretaker government was faced with a very serious challenge, fears emerged that the economic life in Bulgaria might be threatened by accounts being blocked, etc.
The government reached a decision to protect state and municipal companies to prevent them from being possibly the subject of future sanctions in line with this law. According to US legislation, all international bank transactions are being followed by the US government through three major banks. If a transfer is blacklisted, it means the transaction cannot be allowed and economic life is halted.
Following the decision of the Bulgarian government, the Bulgarian National Bank, being an independent body, drafted instructions for banks how to act in such situations and which are the conditions for approving banking transactions. I think the situation is under control, there’s no immediate risk to the Bulgarian banking system and to the economy as a whole.
Apart from the economic system, one of the individuals that is being sanctioned was involved in issuing Bulgarian citizenship. Could it affect the security aspect?
It is truly a matter of security. There had been such practices. First of all, we have a clear signal from the US government, the practice is really unfortunate, from the aspect of security and from the aspect of corruption. As far as I know, statistics show that over 120,000 Macedonian citizen have Bulgarian passports. If the investigation shows that there was corruption in the issuing of Bulgarian citizenships, it means these people didn’t undergo checks according to the rules. Probably, documents were forged. It is a very serious problem for national security. I’m not pointing fingers only at the Republic of North Macedonia, Bulgarian passports had been also issued to other citizens, to citizens of Serbia, Moldova, etc.
It also shows that there might be people whose intentions are not good, they might be involved in something illegal, in terrorism perhaps, they might be from everywhere but also holding Bulgarian passport.
Has review been ordered?
There is, it is being implemented in several directions. The findings will be revealed to the public once it is concluded.
My last question is about the elections in Bulgaria? What are the projections? Will everything be administered as it should for the process to be credible?
The elections in Bulgaria is a democratic achievement allowing relations in the society to be examined every four years. We’ll see very soon what will be the voice of the society. From our point of view, the role of the caretaker government is to administer the elections according to the electoral code and to prevent vote buying, which might tarnish the process in favor of one party or the other. Election is a competition, the parties and their supporters will show what the reality is. You know that after the past elections in April, Parliament couldn’t elect a government. I hope it won’t be the case this time, because the work we do is extremely intensive and difficult. I hope I will be able to hand over the mandate to the next elected government.
Why hand it over, are you considering an option to stay?
It’s not up to me, I wouldn’t comment. Let the parties decide.
Dragan Antonovski
Video and photos by BTA
https://youtu.be/TnMzzhQ8LUo
Mr. Yanev, thank you for this interview, the first one for Macedonian audiences, for MIA. Yesterday (Wednesday), I believe marked one month since the caretaker government took office. How would you define Bulgaria today in one sentence?
It’s little over a month. The caretaker government was appointed on May 12 by President [Rumen] Radev. Taking into consideration the fact that a government is given 100 days as part of democratic traditions, we decided to hold a briefing to point out, shall I say, what we inherited and the basic things we will focus on in the next days and months by the end of the term of the caretaker government. Of course, we have a series of remarks about what we inherited.
Here, in the Balkans, we are never satisfied with our governments. Our people have demands and are constantly criticizing governments. I don’t know if it is the same in Macedonia, but in Bulgaria people love criticizing, but they seem to forget that they have a responsibility when they vote, a responsibility towards the parties. They shouldn’t have to wait for the parties to tell them what kind of programs they have, they have to call on them to work in the interests of the people and to call on the intuitions as well.
From this point of view, our remarks target the institutions. What we came across is that they don’t work with a vision and towards social interest, the interest of the people. Decisions are made by a closed circle of people whose accountability is unclear. Oftentimes, some of the solutions seem to have been made for PR purposes rather than to solve the problem needed solving. From this point of view, we are critical of what we inherited.
At the same time, we’re trying to lay the foundations of what is to come in the future. Namely, this government has the inevitable task of preparing the July 11 elections and we are fully committed to that. The second task is to show another way of running, of managing the institutions that work in the interest of the people and to establish this type of political responses to remind people that they, too, have the responsibility and that in addition to voting, they also have to be critical, constructively critical of the institutions.
The easiest thing to do is to criticize…
It’s true, we all love to criticize.
Absolutely. The hardest thing is to find solutions, however you don’t have much room to implement programs. Promises are one thing, but what have you come across, what you inherited from the previous government?
We inherited what I just mentioned. A type of governance that wasn’t transparent and clear for the people. To put it simply, whether government solutions were reached to truly solve issues or was it just an illusion, a public communication that the issue was solved here and now, but the reality was that the issue remained the next day unresolved. It’s true, the room we have is limited, but we tasked ourselves with showing the society that if we focus on people-oriented policy-creating, we’ll mark the start of such behavior of the Bulgarian parties vying to join Parliament and form the new government after the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
Your predecessor Borissov has recently said that you have in fact dismantled everything they had done over the years. He also said that in the relations with Macedonia, you have also dismantled more than what you have done for the future.
It’s probably a common political discourse, predecessors criticizing their successors and successors criticizing the predecessors. To make a comparison – we’ve done something in one month or 35 days. These 35 days cannot be compared with Borissov’s term of 12 years. Evidently, we cannot change anything drastically in 30 days something that had been built for 12 years.
You met with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, next you will meet with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev. What message are you conveying to your partners?
I’m glad that PM Zaev will be our guest in Sofia together with his delegation and that we’ll be able to see each other as friends, as neighbors and as neighbors and to sit down and talk about the things that depend on us. In practice, the relations created between the Republic of North Macedonia and Bulgaria in the past at least four-five years have been inherited. You know, the Friendship Treaty was signed in 2017, which should serve as the instrument to accelerate the European integration process of Macedonia.
Unfortunately, and I’m not blaming only one side, both sides are to blame because the Agreement, no matter how well-intentioned it is, fails to predict the necessity of some clear mechanism to assess the progress made in terms of the issues the Agreement should close. At the moment, we are not in a situation to seek solution when one side is making the impression that Macedonia is the victim here of Bulgarian persistence, of the Bulgarian position, which probably hadn’t been explained enough either to the Macedonian society or to the Western European countries, the European Union to be exact.
The situation we’re in now is this – Bulgaria’s position is clear. It was affirmed by the Bulgarian Parliament with the so called 2019 Framework Position. The Bulgarian government in late 2020 presented concrete proposals to the Macedonian government of what the potential way out of the situation might be.
After I’ve spoken with Mr. Zaev several times over the phone, at the coming talks we’ll have the chance to discuss in-depth all these issues and the potential solution of these issues standing between us. As regards the European Union, I’ve realized from talks with EU officials and ambassadors that the Bulgarian position hasn’t been elaborated well enough. It’s evident that it hasn’t been elaborated because they have been pointing out the necessity if how vital it is to couple Macedonia and Albania in the European perspective. It is a policy Bulgaria has been supporting for years.
The European perspective of North Macedonia and Albania isn’t disputable. It is a fact. Bulgaria has always been supportive. What’s the situation like now? As a result of this diplomatic, I wouldn’t say pressure, the insisting that we should hurry and act, the Bulgarian society sees it as pressure. The Bulgarian society isn’t tolerant of pressure, because we’ve been talking about values, and the Macedonian society should be well aware of this, because it is you who are striving to join a society of common values – the European Union is a society of common values. Each nation is part of the large European family. It’s no good that the Bulgarian people are feeling under pressure from other political influences, from other governments, because it undermines the principle of solidarity in all European societies. We are part alongside all European citizens.
At the recent NATO summit in Brussels, US President Joe Biden said that we are all partners – including Bulgaria and North Macedonia – in NATO. According to the one for all, all for one principle, we have to support each other. Biden also said we all have to learn to abandon cheap populism, which can be found everywhere, in America, in the Balkans and Europe. It is all in the context of the readiness of the Macedonian citizens and of the Bulgarian citizens to adopt European approach not under pressure, but as a practice. Is this the way to receive these messages?
I understand, the answer has two recourses. Firstly, let’s look at the Balkan recourse before looking at the assistance from abroad. I’d start with the assistance from abroad. President Biden has the right to extend a message as he looks at things. I’ve worked a lot with Americans and I’m familiar with their way of thinking and acting. They are pragmatic people and it is the way it should be because NATO and the EU are basically communities of common values. From the point of view of values, President Biden has the right to say find an agreement quickly and cut it out. From the point of view of average Americans, the river Danube and Nile are very close, if you know what I’m trying to say.
In the Balkans, we share joint history and we share a common space with similar state of mind and behavior of the people. This also includes the fact that many people in the Balkans have mixed families and relatives in different countries. Our joint past, and to an extent our present, suggests that we in the Balkans should also think about a joint future. It means that it is in Bulgaria’s interest Macedonia’s interest to develop and vice versa. Our citizens have interest in our joint development. Without naming any neighboring countries, but more or less we are live in an ethno-cultural environment that is very close regardless of our differences. We do have differences, which is ok.
In this respect, messages coming from abroad could serve as a catalyst. But, they cannot tell us how to solve our problems. We need to sit down and understand each other. We need dialogue, we need to understand our relations and what we can to achieve in the interest of our citizens. Based on these joint interest, we should build a joint future.
Could you define at what point the Republic of North Macedonia should give in and where the Republic of Bulgaria should give in, too, in the interest of the future?
I don’t want to undermine the talks, especially not through a Macedonian medium to tell PM Zaev what he should expect once we sit down for talks.
The media are always the first ones anyway.
I don’t want it to be that way. It’s a good thing to first see each other in person and tell each other the things that are important to us. I’ll tell you this again – it is important for our citizens, they are our allies, we work for them. Solidarity, one of the joint values shared by the EU, is among all citizens. But, first and foremost, every country is responsible before its own citizens. Before our citizens, we cannot make more compromises than what Parliament has allowed, more than our citizens have allowed us. In this regard, we are completely responsible of sitting down in a pragmatic manner with the government of North Macedonia to work on options of how to find a way out of this situation, pragmatically and quickly. We have proposals, I guess the Macedonian side proposals will put forward its own proposals. In the near future, we will hopefully have a Parliament in late July, early August after the July 11 elections. If we’ve done something during the term of the caretaker government, Parliament would affirm it or not and to move forward.
Referring to the Balkans, you mentioned differences and similarities. According to the President Biden’s order, the United States will seriously react to acts of violations of the agreements, including the Prespa Agreement, the Treaty of Dayton, the Ohrid Framework Agreement, and to violation of democracy. Do you recognize anybody in this context in the Balkans?
You mention the agreements, but there is not a single agreement that excludes a country. I’ll tell you once again about the ordinary Americans – the countries in the Balkans for them is a region somewhere in Europe. All the things mentioned from this point of view, purely politically, probably in the future might be realized one way or another at political level. We are yet to see which way because we don’t know the details taken into consideration by the US administration.
In the context of the Macedonian-Bulgarian relations, was it wrong to have left these good neighborly relations primarily to the historians, who have more successful in demonstrating declarative commitment instead of constructiveness. Was it supposed to be the main thread of the bilateral relations of seeking solutions?
Historians are people of science, and people of science should only deal with science, prove their theses, and of course, on the basis of facts and evidence and with the necessary seriousness and responsibility. But they are not to be leaders in politics, because politics is the responsibility of governments. Politics is the responsibility of the executive branch, which responds to the needs of the citizens. The needs of the citizens are defined through voting in elections, i.e. the solution to this issue is in the political life and in the governments of the two countries.
This is exactly my appeal, that the governments sit down and discuss pragmatically about what can be done. And, I’m glad that Zaev will be our guest tomorrow (Friday). Because, even with all the good will expressed during the signing of the Friendship Treaty in 2017, it’s obvious that its implementation is not taking place. This is the fourth year since the Treaty has been signed, and we have made no progress.
We said the Commission should have achieved something, but it’s obvious it hasn’t achieved a thing. It was clear this would happen the first, second year. Will we wait five more years for the Commission to achieve something. It’s not realistic in my opinion.
Perhaps more attention should have been paid to what would mean more to the citizens of the two countries. Maybe, more efforts should have been paid, for example, in Corridor 8.
Corridor 8 is another painful issue, which is why I’ll say that in the Balkans what we have in common in history will open doors into the future. We share joint interest and Corridor 8 means connectivity, both politically and economically. The more we are connected economy-wide, Bulgaria, the Republic of North Macedonia, Albania, Italy even, the more developed we’ll all be. Developed economy always provides better conditions for the development of countries.
Your approach to the fight against corruption has been relentless.
Corruption is omnipresent and Bulgaria is no exception. We became known for the Magnitsky Act and the sanctions introduced by the US government against certain Bulgarian individuals and companies. Practically, the act shows that corruption in Bulgaria has spilled over the national borders, which is embarrassing as it also reveals the gravity of the issue we are facing. The core of the issue is not only corruption as a phenomenon, which is spread everywhere in all countries, but also the fact that Bulgarian judiciary bodies in charge of fighting and curbing corruption have failed to tackle it. They have done almost nothing at all.
And banks have halted actions according to the Global Magnitsky Act?
Yes. Once we got the signal on June 2, the decision of the US government, the caretaker government was faced with a very serious challenge, fears emerged that the economic life in Bulgaria might be threatened by accounts being blocked, etc.
The government reached a decision to protect state and municipal companies to prevent them from being possibly the subject of future sanctions in line with this law. According to US legislation, all international bank transactions are being followed by the US government through three major banks. If a transfer is blacklisted, it means the transaction cannot be allowed and economic life is halted.
Following the decision of the Bulgarian government, the Bulgarian National Bank, being an independent body, drafted instructions for banks how to act in such situations and which are the conditions for approving banking transactions. I think the situation is under control, there’s no immediate risk to the Bulgarian banking system and to the economy as a whole.
Apart from the economic system, one of the individuals that is being sanctioned was involved in issuing Bulgarian citizenship. Could it affect the security aspect?
It is truly a matter of security. There had been such practices. First of all, we have a clear signal from the US government, the practice is really unfortunate, from the aspect of security and from the aspect of corruption. As far as I know, statistics show that over 120,000 Macedonian citizen have Bulgarian passports. If the investigation shows that there was corruption in the issuing of Bulgarian citizenships, it means these people didn’t undergo checks according to the rules. Probably, documents were forged. It is a very serious problem for national security. I’m not pointing fingers only at the Republic of North Macedonia, Bulgarian passports had been also issued to other citizens, to citizens of Serbia, Moldova, etc.
It also shows that there might be people whose intentions are not good, they might be involved in something illegal, in terrorism perhaps, they might be from everywhere but also holding Bulgarian passport.
Has review been ordered?
There is, it is being implemented in several directions. The findings will be revealed to the public once it is concluded.
My last question is about the elections in Bulgaria? What are the projections? Will everything be administered as it should for the process to be credible?
The elections in Bulgaria is a democratic achievement allowing relations in the society to be examined every four years. We’ll see very soon what will be the voice of the society. From our point of view, the role of the caretaker government is to administer the elections according to the electoral code and to prevent vote buying, which might tarnish the process in favor of one party or the other. Election is a competition, the parties and their supporters will show what the reality is. You know that after the past elections in April, Parliament couldn’t elect a government. I hope it won’t be the case this time, because the work we do is extremely intensive and difficult. I hope I will be able to hand over the mandate to the next elected government.
Why hand it over, are you considering an option to stay?
It’s not up to me, I wouldn’t comment. Let the parties decide.
Dragan Antonovski
Video and photos by BTA
https://youtu.be/TnMzzhQ8LUo 
