Turkey’s EU Integration Stirs Controversy in Bulgaria
According to the Sofia media, some of these people are very interested in returning to Bulgaria and are already buying up properties in the southeast.
Despite Turkey’s major potential to affect Bulgaria, neither politicians nor society at large paid much attention to Ankara’s EU ambitions until recently.
The official position was to express general support for Turkey’s membership and to offer support in the preparation process.
But the news of the opening of negotiations provoked a very different reaction, hinting at controversies that may yet arise.
The first negative reaction came from the nationalist Ataka - the party which became the fourth largest following the June parliamentary elections. A party representative, Dimitur Stoyanov, aged 21, told anti-Turkish protesters in Brussels on October 3 that it was unnatural for a community, built on Christian values, to unite with a Muslim country situated outside Europe.
Mainstream political observers and analysts adopted a more moderate tone.
Some pointed to Bulgaria’s interest in Turkey’s EU integration, beyond the obvious point that it will strengthen Turkish democracy and contribute to regional stability.
Charged with responsibility for maintaining the EU’s outer border from January 1, 2007, Bulgaria will face fewer difficulties if it can count on its southeast neighbour for support.
“To serve as a border for the outside world is a heavy burden for any country,” said Ognyan Minchev, a political scientist from the Institute for Regional and International Studies.
“It would be especially difficult in our case, as our border with Turkey is also a border between two religions and two continents.”
Chetin Kazak, a DPS member of parliament, says that a Turkey anchored within Europe, with its strong army and tight borders, would be better placed than Bulgaria to stop the flow of drugs, humans or arms into Europe.
Some analysts even suggest that Ankara’s integration may solve lingering cultural and identity problems among the Bulgarians themselves, rooted in their history as part of the Ottoman Empire.
