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President Plevneliev in Baku: The strategy of Treating States and Regions as the Periphery of the Great Powers and Keeping Them Dependent is Dangerous

No nation, regardless of its political will and military might, can manage the challenges on its own, the Head of State was adamant

The interests-driven policy of Great Powers and periphery between them provokes the existence of frozen conflicts. Closing our eyes to this threat is not a sustainable political solution. This is what President Rosen Plevneliev said at the introductory session of the Third Global Forum in Baku, organized by the Nizami Gandzhevi International Center and the World Leadership Alliance – the Club of Madrid.

This year the Global Forum was devoted to “Building trust in the newly-emerging world order” and was opened by Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan. The forum is attended by participants from almost 60 countries, among which about 40 incumbent and former state leaders from the whole world, and more than 200 top-level government officials, members of the European Parliament and of national parliaments from Europe, Asia and Africa, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, UNESCO, the World Leadership Alliance – the Club of Madrid, the Rome Club and the Organization of the Women Parliamentary Activists.

The Bulgarian Head of State was a special guest at the opening of the introductory session of the discussion. In the statement he made, Rosen Plevneliev outlined the key challenges the world order is facing and said that the crises throughout the world have reached a record number, which requires urgent actions. “We cannot allow ourselves to be passive,” the President said and specified that if no actions are taken, we will enter a “dangerous grey zone of illegitimacy and instability.” “Indifference is no option today,” President Plevneliev was adamant.

Only through cooperation, respect to the rule of law and value-based policy will we be able to address the challenges we face,” the President said. The Head of State highlighted that no nation, regardless of its political will and military might, can manage on its own. “Cooperation is no longer a matter of choice, but of necessity,” the President added. Rosen Plevneliev said that the world does not want to go back to the time when the Great Powers allocated their spheres of influence.

In the Head of State’s words, integration and cooperation proved to be an antidote to destabilization. Evidence of this fact is Europe’s history, after the bloodshed and ruins of World War Two. “The determination to never let such devastation happen again gave birth to United Europe. Enemies became partners and friends, working together for a common future, sharing the same values,” the President said. Rosen Plevneliev gave an example with the Balkans, which were once considered the powder keg of Europe. Today they are a peaceful region, building bridges of trust and cooperation, thanks to the engine of EU integration and the democratic culture of the civil society.

The Head of State highlighted the growing number of frozen conflicts as a challenge the world order is facing and voiced his fear that East Ukraine could be the next one. “If we think about people and their right to live in peace and prosperity, we need to oppose this wrong and dangerous strategy of keeping regions, countries and nations unstable and dependent on the interests of some great power that has decided that they fall within its periphery,” the President emphasized.

Rosen Plevneliev voiced the opinion that every crisis could be traced back to its initial phase when someone violated the rules and we need to establish efficient mechanisms to guarantee the rule of law. The President emphasized that peace could be achieved only when there are rules that apply to everyone. At the same time the Head of State pointed out that we need a system for the early detection of crises to be activated when universal human values are violated. “The use of weapons is not an argument, it is the absence of arguments,” Rosen Plevneliev told the participants in the forum.

The President recalled that as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, we entered a new phase of “a cold peace” in Europe. “It is peace, because nobody wants a war and nobody wants to go back to the cold war. But it is a “cold peace”, because, unfortunately, Russia and the West are opposing to each other today, while the EU struggles to stay united on the sanctions,” the President explained. “The EU is a unique project, where consensus-driven policies make every state important,” the President added and called on for seeking consensus on a global level. “On the world stage we hope to see global interests that reflect the guiding principles and values of international order and do not destroy them,” the Head of State said.

The President voiced concern over the new wave of nationalism on the rise in Europe, addressing people’s fears on migration, a lack of economic perspective, high unemployment and others. “Modern patriotism, not nationalism is needed, more than ever today,” Rosen Plevneliev said. The President outlined climate change, migration, terrorism and security threats, which require joint efforts. “We face challenges coming out of the wrong interpretation even manipulating the history, or not learning from history,” the Head of State emphasized.

In conclusion the President said that no matter how tough the global challenges we are facing are, we should not delay or shift problems to the next government, even the next generation. “We need to address the problems in a responsible manner – we should not hide or delay them, but make sustainable decisions so that we could speed up the building of an integrated, peaceful, humane, and stable world order,” President Plevneliev said at the opening of the forum in Baku.