Galery

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It's hard to analyse each one of them. When you started listing them, I thought: the first "yes", the second - "no", etc. But the truth is that the devil is always in the details. My long political experience has shown that often there are good intentions, which, however, cannot be applied.

The truth is that you need to identify the connecting links. Prosperous Europe is going through several key political moments which will affect the mentality of the nations. For example, the topic of this conference was a possible North-South division. I am a citizen of a country which was the subject of another division - between the East and the West. Such divisions always exist. And in fact the strategy is to find ways to intercept people's fears. The idea for the President of the European Commission to be elected by the largest parliamentary group in the European Parliament is still a matter of some quotas. If we really want Europe to work as a single mechanism, we have to find those binding sites which will enable people, whether they are Germans, Greeks or Bulgarians, to feel the same way in the European Union. That is, not to divide people into nations, despite the fact that we will keep our national identity, but to divide them into successful and failed, capable and unable, committed and uncommitted. In this way we will enable motivated people to become the driving force of the EU. I realize that people are not equally smart, equally ambitious, and equally motivated in life. That is why there are people who are chosen to do what others are unable to. This does not make them people belonging to a higher class compared to those who do not have the relevant skills.

I think that, besides political, the debate in the European Union is also an economic and moral debate about values, a debate about tolerance and the ability to find common solutions. It is a debate which despite being at the heart of the creation of the European Union, has somehow stepped into the background in recent years, since everybody has been immersed in the economic and political crisis, in the expansion of the European Union, etc. And the need for values and morals has also somehow faded into the background. These words have now become clichés to some extent. But ultimately, it is the base from which everything starts. This is what actually makes you react in one way or another, regardless of whether you're a politician, financier, or an employee in the private or public sector. And when these invisible things are drawn closer – although they will never be aligned - then we will suddenly see that there are solutions for everything. In contrast, the creation of quotas, of larger and smaller groups, of first and second states in the EU, of Catholics and Orthodox – these are all divisions. I will say it again - I come from a country where communism was based on a number of divisions: people from cities and villagers, residents of the capital city and the country, and many others. But a divided nation and a divided European Union can become the object of secret aspirations by nationalists and populists. And the great dream for which several generations of Europeans have worked so far will end up in the mud.

Would you compare the crisis which Greece, Spain and Portugal are currently experiencing with the crisis in Bulgaria in 1990 and 1996? What are the similarities and what are the differences?

It will take us a long time in order to discuss the similarities and differences, but your question has provoked me to say something which may have affected me to some extent at the conference - the explicit portrayal of Bulgaria as a poorer country compared to Greece.

I am completely aware of the economic problems which my fellow-country people are facing since I know them very well both as a politician and citizen. But at the same time, if we do not bear in mind what Bulgaria has achieved in recent years in terms of macroeconomic stability – financial stability, the protected financial and banking system - it means that we do not respect ourselves. In this sense, I believe that with good governance, it is just a matter of time for Bulgaria to be able to stabilize and really raise the standard of living, because the base is solid.

It is no coincidence that I am saying that the Bulgarian government in the period between 1997 and 2001 laid such significant foundations in terms of reforms - with all the criticism against it. Undoubtedly, these reforms are extremely unpopular. Actually, this is a typical example and proves that leadership consists of taking unpopular decisions. Since if we had slipped and gone downhill to the love of people, as populists often say, we would probably never have implemented even one hundredth of what was achieved in terms of reforms, privatization, accession to the EU, removal of visas and joining NATO. And then, of course, we would have searched for the guilt elsewhere and not in us, as is customary in the Balkans. But the problem would have been ours alone.