Site of the Month:
Euranet:
A network of 16 radio-stations from 13 EU-countries informs citizens through interviews and reports about the European Union.
Bulgaria
Website of Politeia Member from Bulgaria: Centre for Liberal Strategies
A third project, in which CLS is a part as it unfolds during the first half of 2008, is the continuation of the “State of Society” series. The project has an explicit focus on Bulgarian society, and tries to capture trends in the deep structure, perceptions and attitudes in Bulgarian society. This is the third stage in the series, after 2002 and 2006, and will allow for the first time to see if some of the previous findings are confirmed as trends and whether new social processes have emerged. Being a partner in a wider Bulgarian team in the State of Society III project, the CLS is also separately applying the relatively novel method of analyzing “microtrends”, identifying specific social groups whose characteristics and dynamics are judged by the CLS team to be especially telling about Bulgarian society, and studies them in-depth. Thus the macro-social data, obtained through the nationally representative survey on State of Society III will be combined with the in-depth insights from the microtrends for a more nuanced and deeper picture of underlying processes in the Bulgarian society.
This article was published in Politeia Newsletter 48 - February 2008
Spearheading the development of a European focus and European debates on the relationship between the EU, and the West as a whole, and Russia, CLS has started the “Sovereign Democracy” project, funded by a Bulgarian donor – the Communitas Foundation. The concept of “sovereign democracy”, launched by Putin’s regime, has so far been treated cavalierly by the West. But it works in today’s Russia and should be analyzed seriously. Presently, as Putin is leaving in order to stay, the Western societies need a better understanding and a serious debate on the nature of Kremlin’s regime. The project will produce a book. It shall consist of writings by the leading ideologues (Russians and foreigners) of Kremlin’s concept of sovereign democracy on the one hand, countered by criticism from influential thinkers (Russians and foreigners) on the other hand. The presentation of the book should be followed by a book-tour all over Europe to start off a debate.
This article was published in Politeia Newsletter 48 - February 2008
CLS is the Bulgarian partner in the SOCCOH project, financed through the 6th framework program of the European Commission. Its goal is to study the role of social capital in economic development through its impact on regional development policies. More precisely, the project focuses on the analysis of policy-making social networks at the regional level in terms of their national contextual analysis and their international comparison, with a focus on policy recommendations for the 2014-2020 planning period. Now, towards the end of the project, the research is already completed, the policy-making structures and the social network analyses on the national level are prepared, and the international comparison is being finished. The result of the project, besides specific policy proposals, will be two books containing the national and comparative analyses of existing policy structures and of the studied regional policy-making networks.
This article was published in Politeia Newsletter 48 - February 2008
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.
The debate over the proper form of minority rights in the post-communist world has intensified significantly over the last decade. The representation of ethnic minorities in the political process is one of the components of minority protection. Minority representation can take various and diverse forms. Minorities can have their own representatives in the legislative institutions at both national and regional level; they can have minority “experts” in various consultative bodies to the government; alternatively, minorities can also be given a right to self-government. Achieving legislative representation can also be done in several ways – minorities can participate in the political process through non-minority specific parties or they can try to form their own parties and achieve representation along ethnic lines.
The Roma minority in Bulgaria is experiencing the type of problems which are typical for this minority in many other countries. Generally, the Roma are less educated, less healthy, and less employed than other ethnic groups in the country. They are also poorer, with higher levels of criminal activity. Significant groups tend to live in ghettoes without proper housing and living conditions. They are heavily discriminated against, and their human rights are regularly subject to violation. The Roma are the second largest minority group in Bulgaria after the Turks, but in contrast to the Turkish minority they remain outside of the political process and enjoy very poor political representation.
29 March 2007
Bulgaria joined the European Citizens’ Consultations upon accession to the EU on January 1, 2007. That is why there were no Bulgarian participants at the ECC Agenda setting event in October 2006. The National Citizens’ Consultation in Bulgaria took place on February 10-11 2007 in Sofia. The event was organized by the Centre for Liberal Strategies and the Alpha Research Agency. The CLS and Alpha Research organized back in 2003 the first deliberative poll in Central and Eastern Europe on organized crime. At present, they are in the final stage of the second deliberative poll in Bulgaria on the situation of the Roma minority (April 13-15 2007). The deliberative dimension of the ECC initiative was of special interest for the organizers.
65 participants with just six weeks of experience as EU citizens discussed for two days the three topics agreed upon by 200 citizens from the EU 25 back in 2006: Energy & Environment; Family & Social Welfare; EU’s Global Role & Immigration.
The mood, in which many Bulgarians found themselves on 1 January 2007, was a bit peculiar. This date marked Bulgaria’s accession to the EU, a goal which its citizens pursued enthusiastically for more than a decade, and this gave ample reasons for celebration.
Under the enlarged European Union, many new regions will become eligible for specific support targeting the convergence of the income and development levels in the so-called ‘cohesion’ (or NUTS 2) regions with those of the more advanced regions in the European Union. In fact, every single region in the 10+2 (including Bulgaria and Romania) new member states is eligible for such support, with the sole exception of the city of Prague. This puts the European cohesion/regional policy in a qualitatively new situation.