Bulgaria’s Right Reports to EPP at Breakfast
Chairman of the European People’s Party (EPP) Wilfred Martens calls leaders of Bulgarian member-parties in Kempinski Hotel. The European chief will insist on the right forming coalition for the EP vote
Iva Nikolova | 14.02.2009 22:57A fresh intrigue is in the making among Bulgaria’s right parties due to the visit of Chairman of the European People’s Party (EPP) Wilfred Martens in Sofia. The two partitions of divided agrarian party Bulgarian Agrarian People’s Union-People’s Union (BAPU-PU), headed until 2 years ago by Anastasia Mozer, keep on arguing for the heart of the European right and intend using Martens’ visit as another battle for confirming the legitimacy of either one before the EPP. This will take place during the working breakfast at which Martens has invited
the leaders and international relations secretaries
of all Bulgarian EPP member-parties. These are the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), the Democratic Party (DP), Bulgarian Agrarian People’s Union-People’s Union (BAPU-PU), and Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB).
After splitting, some of the agrarians registered the Agrarian People’s Union (APU) party with leader Stefan Lichev. The rest of the former parliamentary party remained with Anastasia Mozer, who – in her turn – launched legal procedures against APU’s legitimacy, which are still going. Lichev’s activists, though, have managed to legally and politically convince ENP’s leadership that their organization namely is the legal successor of the divided party. APU’s international relations secretary Roumen Yonchev will for sure appear at Martens’ breakfast. Yet Anastasia Mozer might also turn for a morning coffee in the Kempinski Hotel. Yonchev used to be international secretary of Mozer’s party when it was united, so in all cases he is the only legitimate representative of Bulgaria’s agrarian member-parties of the EPP, no matter on behalf of which formation he takes breakfast with Martens.
The leader of the European rightist party arrives in Sofia in Sunday, February 15, and will stay in the Kempinski Hotel. He has set the time for his breakfast with Bulgarian right leaders for 8:30 a.m. on Monday. Martens comes upon invitation of CEDB, which enjoys the special protections of the European right party due to the five MPs it pushed into the parliamentary faction of EPP-EDP in the European Parliament. Shortly after, Sofia Mayor Boyko Borissov’s party joined the EPP in an accelerated procedure, and Secretary General of the latter Antonio Lopez openly stated he expected CEDB to win the next general election in Bulgaria and form a cabinet.
By inviting all the right leaders of Bulgarian member-parties of the EPP to breakfast, Wilfred Martens has probably made use of the opportunity to
compensate for the long postponed meeting
of Bulgaria’s right in Kadenabia, that the European right intend organizing since the autumn of last year. The aim of the meeting was EPP to try reconciling Bulgaria’s right parties at odds, and convince them to run for the elections together. Through the years Kadenabia has twice gathered the right, to alternating success. If after 2006 they won all sorts of elections in the country and served the first full term in power in Bulgaria’s newest history, in 2001 it was exactly where the splitting of the UDF started from, after Stefan Sofianski left and created his Union of the Free Democrats (UFD). EPP made another unsuccessful attempt for uniting our right parties in 2004 in Budapest. Then Ivan Kostov had departed from the UDF, formed his Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), and stood adamant to all cajolement to appear at the elections together with his former party.
By end-2008 the date for EPP’s next attempt to get together Bulgaria’s right parties in Kadenabia has been canceled twice, and it will obviously not take place after all. But EPP Chair Wilfred Martens will probably use his breakfast with the right leaders to convince them to overcome their differences prior to the general election and run together. This time around the severest opponent of the right unification before the vote is Boyko Borissov, who for almost a year now states firmly CEDB would run for the election independently, so EPP’s intentions will strike a snag again.
But Martens’ visit also coincides with the
period prior to the EP election
scheduled uniformly for the entire European Union. The EPP’s leader is expected to insist our right parties appeared united at the European Parliament vote in order of wining more seats. EPP needs the number of Bulgaria’s representatives in Brussels in order to fight again for majority in the EP. It has long been hinting to Bulgaria’s right its unification before the European election will bring it more votes. But Borissov would hardly be prone to sharing winning positions in the voting tickets with other parties. At the previous Euro-vote he allowed two representatives of formations he had united with – Nikolay Mladenov from Maria Cappone’s then civic movement European Democratic Way, and Petia Stavreva from BAPU-PU. Later on Mladenov became a member of CEDB, but Stavreva remained loyal to the Agrarians and this was a reason for having some problems with Borissov at the start.
The invitation CEDB addressed to EPP’s chair is a part of the demonstrations of the European support for the party, which has always searched for it and which it especially needed now, after the latest not that European statements of Borissov in Chicago.
An evidence for this is the fact that together with Martens in Sofia arrives head of the Bulgarian delegation of European MPs from CEDB in EPP Roumiana Zheleva. Talks go that she takes part to ENP truce envoy Vincenzo Di Paolo’s probes for the formation of CEDB and BSP cabinet after the elections. Borissov confirmed before ReTV he knows Di Paolo but did not elaborate on what themes they talk. It’s not impossible Zheleva and the other more known MEP from the mayor’s party – Nikolay Mladenov, to attend the breakfast too.
The program the hosts have drafted for Martens
made in advance nervous the leaders
of the other EPP member-parties, as according to the schedule during his three-day stay in Bulgaria he is planned to tour structures of CEDB in the country. So far it’s known meetings are organized in Plovdiv and Bourgas. Yet other representatives of the right also want to talk to Martens alone.
That’s why the presence of agrarian Roumen Yonchev at the breakfast is also significant due to the involvement of APU in the new Forward Coalition, formed around VMRO and LEADER, the latter better known as “Kovachki’s party”. Although all the parties in it determine themselves as rightist or centrist, Yonchev is representative of the only EPP member-party in this political alliance. APU is probably the party entrusted with the role to bring
European legitimacy for Forward,
and the participation of the Agrarians at the meetings and session of the European right party will supply the new coalition with grounds to present itself as a champion of its ideas in Bulgaria. The group was recently joined by the Gergiovden party as well.
Persistent rumors included in the alliance also Maria Cappone’s European People’s Way, but so far it has not joined the coalition. Cappone’s contacts with EPP, though, date back to the time when she was UDF’s EP observer, and her party’s involvement would strengthen EPP’s influence in the Forward Coalition. What’s more, she and Yonchev have been working for years with the European right structure in their capacities of international relations secretaries of their former parties – accordingly, BAPU-PU and DP, which were in coalition until the latest general elections in 2005. A strengthened position of the Forward formation within the EPP would supply the coalition with stable grounds to pretend to be a part of a possible future government, if it enters the parliament and the mandate for government forming goes to CEDB. Informal leader of the party Boyko Borissov has long ago announced his intentions to form a cabinet with the EPP member-parties, so the pretentions of Forward to be represented in it will not fall in empty space.
The other big question around the remake of Francois Mitterrand’s fabulous breakfast with Bulgarian intellectuals 20 years ago is if DSB leader Ivan Kostov will personally answer Martens’ invitation. If the former prime minister decides to have breakfast on Monday with the rest right leaders and the EPP chair, he will have to sit next to CEDB’s leader Boyko Borissov. His absence, though, would pose under question the assertions of Borissov in the USA that the two “have worked it out”. The Sofia Mayor will have to sit by the same table with one of his worse political enemies – Alexander Pramatarski, with whom he has often exchanged fire; during the latest local elections DP’s candidate Konstantin “Titi” Papazov was one of Borissov’s severest opponents.
Bulgaria’s right parties at odds, trying to break the ice in one direction or another before the elections, would hardly listed to their European partners’ advices. But will for sure learn what EPP’s expectations towards them are.
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