Bulgaria and euroscepticism – distant, but maybe not that far apart

A brief survey among different Bulgarian political observers with the question “Can you identify a Eurosceptic Bulgarian organisation?” would yield to an almost unanimous answer: “Ataka”.

Ataka (Attack) was established as a movement only months before the 2005 general elections and then successfully positioned itself as the fourth largest party in parliament, later confirming that position in the elections for the European Parliament.

But a more careful look at the party documents, and especially at its behaviour over the last two years, from the point of view of the concept of euroscepticism creates some problems. True, Ataka is a typical nationalistic, racist, xenophobic political organization like so many others across Europe. It is adamantly against NATO, it wants to sever the links with the IMF and the World Bank, to re-nationalise privatized property, to ban the ownership of agricultural land by foreign citizens, to ban the use of languages other than Bulgarian in publicly owned media, and to re-introduce capital punishment.

But does all this make it eurosceptic, really?

The party constantly refers to “Europe”, “European”, “like in Europe” in all its basic documents. It has not pronounced itself against Bulgaria’s membership in the EU, and the phrase “the lives and living standards of our citizens are more important to us than the EU” is hardly enough to differentiate it from any other party in Europe. The party actively participated in the elections for European Parliament in May 2007, and sent three representatives there. They promptly became members of the newly established Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty parliamentary group, whose most eurosceptic principles, as found in their group declaration, are “recognition of national interests, sovereignties, identities and differences”, and “opposition to a unitary, bureaucratic, European super-state”. Anyone who wants to find a euro-enthusiast who would fundamentally disagree with these statements, will have a hard time.

Of course, this is not to say that Ataka is not eurosceptic. But it does say that the concept of “euroscepticism”, especially its definition, is problematic. If, as an attempt for a working definition, we say that euroscepticism is the belief that the level of integration in Europe – already achieved and in the pipeline – is too high for the common good, then Ataka will surely qualify on some points, but definitely be on the other side on others. For example, the proposals to re-introduce capital punishment or to ban ownership of land by foreigners would definitely require less integration than there is now. Yet, on the other side, Ataka has said nothing about declining the transfer of the EU structural funds towards Bulgaria as a tool of preserving Bulgarian sovereignty, and is on record in demand to de-criminalise the actions of journalists, which would constitute a higher than the present level of convergence towards prevailing European laws.

All these reservations aside, the fact that Ataka is the only thing that comes to mind in terms of eurosceptic organisations in Bulgaria is telling. There is, literally, nothing else of any public significance or presence. This, however, should not leave the impression that, with the exception of several nationalists, the Bulgarians are and will be generally enthusiastic about Europe.

There are some recent sociological and anthropological studies that indicate processes of nervousness about EU membership in Bulgarian society in general, even if this social nervousness has not found and organisational form yet. These attitudes reflect a combination of factors. One factor is certain cultural features of relatively large segments of Bulgarians – such as low mobility, high risk aversion and relatively closed types of cultural consumption. Another factor is some rational concerns about the potential negatives of integration, such as higher inflation, more intense competition, and easier emigration of younger people and specialists with higher qualifications.

These sentiments and attitudes are perfectly normal for a society undergoing an unprecedented transformation and entering into the EU. But, if left unmanaged, they may open a grand opportunity for some social and political entrepreneur to exploit the niche and establish a truly eurosceptic and seriously influential organisation – political or other. So the absence of much public euroscepticism in Bulgaria at present cannot serve as a basis of a claim that such an issue is not and will not be important for the Bulgarian society.

Georgy Ganev, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia

This article was published in Politeia Newsletter 46 - October 2007