site.btaMEP Pirinski: "Bulgaria Can Have Two Different Types of Foreign Policy"

MEP Pirinski: "Bulgaria Can Have Two Different Types of Foreign Policy"

Sofia, September 19 (BTA) - "Bulgaria can have two different types of foreign policy," Bulgaria Left MEP Georgi Pirinski said, speaking at the opening of a roundtable on the countries of the post-Soviet space and the EU, organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Economics and International Relations Institute.

"Adhering to the idea that the countries "eastward of the West and westward of the East" are a fringe to the centres of global influence leads to a constant apprehension of being left behind and to recurring declarations of unqualified allegiance to Euro-Atlantic values," he said. He sees an alternative in a broader perspective, with active involvement in the reshaping of regional and trans-regional relations from the position of a player centrally located on the crossroads of defining long-term global, economic and political transformations.

As an example of a broader policy, Pirinski said that Bulgaria can develop an initiative focused on the Black Sea as a new European macroregion, following the ones already existing in the Baltic, along the Danube, and in the Adriatic-Ionian area. In his words, such macroregion could relaunch relations between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union. "This places the countries of the region in a win-win framework instead of facing them with an either-or choice," Pirinski stressed.

German Ambassador in Sofia Detlef Lingemann pointed out that Europe must be united in order to cope with the challenges it confronts: migration, terrorism, climate change. "Not a single European country is strong enough to cope alone," he argued.

Taking part in the forum are MPs, diplomats, public administration officials, academics, NGO experts and political scientists.