BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES
Weekly analysis with Sam Morgan
Bulgaria has a new government and a new European Commissioner but still no eurozone or Schengen membership. Could the tide finally be turning in favour of one of the EU’s newest member states?
After a period of immense political uncertainty and seemingly never-ending deadlock, Bulgaria’s politicians managed to broker a power-sharing deal in June that installed a new prime minister.
Despite joining the EU in 2007, Bulgaria still remains literally and metaphorically on the bloc’s outskirts. But unlike other countries in the region that want to pull further away, Sofia clearly wants to be closer to the EU core.
The new government might well spell a sea-change moment for Bulgaria and its dreams of joining the single currency and getting border-free access to the rest of the bloc. If it can convince its biggest critics that their concerns are unfounded.
BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES includes weekly analysis not found anywhere else, as Sam Morgan helps you make sense of what is happening in Brussels. If you want to receive Brussels Behind the Scenes straight to your inbox every week, subscribe to the newsletter here.
Joining the eurozone and Schengen are two of Bulgaria’s main EU priorities. The Eastern European nation has fulfilled the criteria for the latter, along with Romania, for a number of years and is working hard to meet requirements needed to adopt the single currency.
The reforms and work needed to achieve those ambitions will be much easier to pull off now that Bulgaria finally has a new government, led by Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov as part of a power-sharing deal with the conservative GERB party.
Under that deal, Denkov will hand over the reins to former European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, who was poached by Sofia from Brussels when it became clear that a political deal was possible.
Bulgaria’s new administration has already proven itself capable of making policy decisions. Two names were quickly put forward to be the next Commissioner and take over from the departed Gabriel.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen decided this week to choose Iliana Ivanova as her pick to join her team and head up the research and innovation job. MEPs will have the chance to interview her and will either approve or reject her candidacy.
Ivanova is, for want of a better term, a grown-up appointment. Previously an MEP herself, just like Gabriel was, she has served nearly a decade at the Court of Auditors, the EU’s budgetary watchdog.
If she is accepted by Parliament then that will reduce the uncertainty associated with the EU’s multi-billion-euro research scheme, Horizon Europe, which is due to undergo a midterm review over the next six months.
There is also the small question of what to do with the United Kingdom’s stalled candidacy to join Horizon as a third-party country. A safe pair of hands at the Commission’s highest political level will be no bad thing.
The politics of the thing
Bulgaria will take heart from the fact that Croatia, the newest EU member, achieved the double whammy of joining both the euro and Schengen at the beginning of this year, demonstrating that the membership process is indeed viable.
The Commission even published a report this week six months on from the euro adoption hailing the changeover as “smooth and efficient”, suggesting that there are few regrets in Brussels about letting the Adriatic nation join. Not yet anyway.
That viability is not to be found in the full EU accession and enlargement procedure, which despite the new candidacies of Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia, is very much still in zombie mode until Brussels officials and national governments can prove otherwise.
As far as euro membership goes, it is a far more technical process than Schengen. Generally, if a country can demonstrate that it fulfils the currency criteria and can pass the necessary reforms and votes at home, coins can be minted and notes printed.
Joining the passport-free travel zone is far more political. As mentioned, Bulgaria and Romania have only been kept out because of politics. But the tide could be slowly changing in their favour.
Croatia showed that a big border with a non-EU country that is on a migration route can be no obstacle to Schengen membership, while Bulgaria’s new government could finally be on to something.
Prime Minister Denkov has invited government officials from Austria and the Netherlands, two of Bulgaria’s biggest critics, to visit the country and see the border infrastructure that is in place on the frontier with Türkiye.
The new government is not shying away from the fact that there are problems but is adamant that it wants to solve them, even urging countries with reservations to clearly spell out what their issues actually are.
For Austria and the Netherlands, this presents a bit of a conundrum because the Schengen veto is about wider migration policy concerns, not just Bulgaria and Romania’s membership.
If they are forced into spelling out exactly what they want then the fact this is a bit of a hostage situation, with Bucharest and Sofia as the victims, will become all the more clearer. That could inject impetus into their bids.
As the impasse at this week’s European Council summit demonstrated, migration as a divisive issue is only going to get nastier and uglier. Bulgaria and Romania’s Schengen hopes may well be dictated for the large part by the whims of others.
BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES includes weekly analysis not found anywhere else, as Sam Morgan helps you make sense of what is happening in Brussels. If you want to receive Brussels Behind the Scenes straight to your inbox every week, subscribe to the newsletter here.
