Bulgaria is today seeking to redefine the contours of its foreign policy in order to establish greater balance and autonomy. Deputy Prime Minister Ivo Hristov described the telephone conversation between President Rumen Radev and Donald Trump as “a new type of dialogue between heads of state, direct, without intermediaries.”
Speaking on public TV, Ivo Hristov insisted on the importance of the visa issue and wanted to mark a break with the approach of the previous government, which he described as an almost automatic acceptance of American requirements. “We weren’t the ones who invited the planes to Sofia airport. And you probably heard Marco Rubio a few days ago, who said that the Bulgarian authorities had been great and said ‘yes’, without even asking what that was about. These are the types of relationships we have inherited,” he said.
According to him, Bulgaria now adopts a balanced and independent diplomacy, dialoguing on equal terms with Brussels, Berlin and Paris as well as with Washington, DC
Ivo Hristov believes that this new approach strengthens the country’s weight on the international scene. Among the examples highlighted are Sofia’s firm stance in favor of a rapid lifting of the visa requirement for the United States, as well as the government’s serious reservations regarding the Mercosur trade agreement, deemed potentially detrimental to the competitiveness of Bulgarian agricultural producers.
Édition : Darina GrigorovaÂ
Version: française Svjetlana SatricÂ
