Protecting Russian Patriarch Kirill does not make Bulgaria safer, richer, more influential, more competitive, does not strengthen our positions in the European Union, the security of the Black Sea region. It only creates the impression that at a time when Europe is trying to limit the instruments of Russian influence, Bulgaria has chosen to defend one of the ways to do so, says a declaration by the GERB-SDF parliamentary group, quoted by BTA.
Yesterday, in a comment to journalists about the European Commission's new proposal to further expand sanctions against Russia, Prime Minister Rumen Radev indicated that our country would veto it if the Russian Patriarch Kirill was not removed from the proposed lists.
There are moments when politics begins to replace concepts. Aggression is presented as a desire for peace, dependence- as sovereignty, Daniel Mitov pointed out. It is precisely such a moment, in his words, that we are experiencing today in the dispute over the Bulgarian government's position on the latest package of European sanctions against the Russian Federation. At first glance, the dispute is about the sanctions against the Russian patriarch, but in reality it is about something much bigger - about the way Bulgaria understands its national interest, about our place in Europe, about our attitude towards war, international law and our own history.
The government's position is trying to present this issue as a clash between politics and religion, it is suggested that the EU has almost decided to sanction Orthodoxy and that Bulgaria is the last barrier to such injustice, Mitov read. And he added that such a thesis has nothing to do with reality, no one sanctions the Orthodox faith, no one sanctions the Russian Orthodox Church as a religious institution. No one questions freedom of religion.
The role of a specific person is being discussed, who for years has used his enormous public and spiritual authority to justify Putin's war against Ukraine and to give this war moral and spiritual legitimacy, GERB-SDF believe.
Mitov recalled that Rumen Radev himself, in his role as president, said years ago that Kirill came as a spiritual leader, but chose to leave as a politician.
Religious authority cannot serve as a basis for political immunity, Daniel Mitov emphasized. Even more interesting is the attempt to dress this dispute in historical arguments, the declaration notes. It was said that Russian Orthodoxy had contributed to the liberation of Bulgaria and that this should be taken into account when forming the Bulgarian position.
Bulgaria remembers its history, honors the memory of those who died in the Russo-Turkish War. Bulgaria does not suffer from historical amnesia, the MP said. If someone wants to turn the liberation into an eternal political debt to Russia, they should remember another historical fact - after the liberation, the young Bulgarian principality paid significant sums to the Russian Empire for decades to support the occupation administration and troops, Daniel Mitov noted.
No mature state defines its international behavior according to 19th-century gratitude. If we start doing this, we will have to rewrite all of European history and return international relations to an era that has long since ended, the declaration says.
Today's Bulgarian state does not exist to serve historical myths, regardless of where they come from, but to protect the interests of Bulgarian citizens here and now. What exactly Bulgarian interest are we protecting by threatening to block the sanctions package against the Russian Federation if the Moscow Patriarch ends up on the sanctions list, the political force asks.
When it comes to energy security, the functioning of the refinery in Burgas, real economic risk consequences for the Bulgarian economy, there is no dispute, it is important for every Bulgarian government to protect national economic interests and insist on solutions that do not harm Bulgarian citizens and businesses, Daniel Mitov pointed out. That is why it is difficult, he commented, to understand why, to these perfectly legitimate economic arguments, special protection was added for one of the Kremlin's most recognizable public defenders of the war. In his words, one thing is to protect the Bulgarian economy, another is to protect Russian political propaganda.
Independent foreign policy is not about lying in wait to say “no” to your allies in order to appear independent. This is a very elementary understanding of statehood. Sovereignty is the ability to clearly explain why you take a given position and how it protects the interests of your own country, GERB-SDF point out. And they add that this is where the government's arguments begin to fall apart.
“We at GERB-SDF believe in a different approach. We believe that Bulgaria must firmly defend its economic interests, that it must be an active participant in the formation of European policies. "We also believe in something else, that Bulgarian history should not be used as a tool to justify contemporary geopolitical dependencies, that Orthodoxy should not be used as political propaganda, and that the Bulgarian national interest cannot be defined through the prism of what is convenient for the Kremlin," the declaration further states.