SPEECHES AND STATEMENTS

Esteemed President Ader,

Esteemed National Assembly Speakers in the years of transition,

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

In the past 25 years we have been trying to analyze the transition period in Bulgaria. At the beginning the questions were quite general: a new constitution – immediately or after some time? Shock therapy or a smooth transition? Lustration of preserving the elite? 

 

Regarding the replacement of the power holders Bulgaria took an example from the round tables in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. The democratic changes in Romania started in a different way – with the murder of the dictator Ceausescu. The different countries made different choices. Today we know the price of these choices. We know that unfortunately in Bulgaria and Romania the inviolability of the unreformed judiciary has rather been enhanced and a smooth transformation of the old communist elite which preserved its positions in power and in the economy in the years of transition was guaranteed. Today we see in the whole of Europe and we speak about reforms in the healthcare and pension sectors – long-postponed, difficult and harsh reforms and we realize that by postponing each one of these reforms, every next government finds it more difficult to act, the crisis becomes more severe and creates growing distrust in politicians. 

 

The same holds for postponing uncovering the truth about the communist regime. The more delayed and half-expressed the truth, the lower the public trust. The opening of the former communist-era State Security dossiers which was delayed by 20 years in Bulgaria, failed to make up for the wasted time and the State Security networks had meanwhile become political and economic and are still active. We hope that Serbia, Macedonia, the Western Balkan countries, which have taken the path of European integration will learn from the Bulgarian mistakes and follow the example set by Hungary and Germany. These countries placed communism and its secret services in the museum and the history textbooks in a worthy manner. They did that on time, way back in the 1990’s. Moreover in an objective, worthy, principled manner. Unfortunately, in Bulgaria this process has not been completed yet.

 

The common challenge we faced was to go down the path toward democracy. All countries had to restore political pluralism, to introduce market economy. However, for some countries such as Bulgaria this process was accompanied by a painful change of ownership. In less than 50 years the Bulgarian society had to go through a major redistribution of ownership. This was a task of considerable importance, it severely affected the public perception of how fair the whole transition period was. Bad privatization, the non-transparent selling of assets worth tens of billions leva, not to strategic investors and at a non-profitable price, became another symbol of the Bulgarian transition as well as the half-open dossiers and the half-expressed truth about communism.

 

For all of us the change in 1989 was unexpected. No one in the Western countries expected that the changes in Poland and Hungary will have the effect of a domino in East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Although all these countries were related through the dominating role of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Treaty, the systems they lived in were quite different. This predetermined the different ways in which the changes and transition were effected. In countries such as Czechoslovakia the regime was bureaucratic and authoritarian; in Poland and Hungary it had seemingly ceded public territories to dissidents, while in countries such as Bulgaria it was simultaneously repressive and clientele – one that not only committed the excesses of the “Revival process,” but also maintained a communist party with more than one million members.   

 

However, the greatest difference between the communist regimes, which determined the way they became democratic, was the attitude to Russia and the Soviet Union. On the one hand, there are countries such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Serbia, which have historical relations with Russia and where the modernization performed, initiated, partly financed, paid and also imposed by the Soviet Union resulted in seeking a “third path” in the transition period, different from the prompt and unequivocal reaction of other countries toward Euro-Atlantic orientation and integration. It was namely this prompt and unequivocal and extremely efficient Euro-Atlantic integration that other groups of countries chose - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries. Currently we see the results of this efficient integration in Europe and in the Euro-Atlantic structures - the incomes, institutions, the rule of law and social justice are more developed and on a higher level in these countries. So is the public trust.

 

The communist regimes also differed in the ways in which they dominated in the societies. In Bulgaria the regime had destroyed or exerted a total control over all institutions of modern citizenship, while in countries such as Hungary and Poland different degrees of autonomy had been preserved and also the church and private property, even the army was relatively autonomous.

 

We should not forget that communism in Bulgaria was imposed by the systematic cruelty and unprovoked aggression of the so-called People’s Court and in the first months after the new power holders seized power 2,730 people were sentenced to death. In less than a year the Bulgarian communists killed more generals and senior officers than had died in all wars that Bulgaria had fought in since it was liberated. A total of about 30,000 were killed in the first years of the regime – this is one of the largest numbers compared to the victims in our friendly countries from Central and Eastern Europe.

 

Later the grip of the regime continued to be strong and uncompromisingly destroyed any dissident movement which had just emerged. The fabricated trials, the concentration camps, the communist-era state security were the tools used to exert control and force people in submission. Thus fear was successfully instilled in the public. And when we sometimes ask ourselves why there has been no visible 1956 in Bulgaria, this is one of the answers.

 

Thus in the early 1980’s nothing in the everyday lives of people seemed to suggest that the regime will very soon collapse. At that time no one imagined that although crushed, suffocated and hardly glimmering, there were anyway flames of a different mode of thinking and opposition in Bulgaria. They lacked the power and organization of the Polish Labor Unions and Solidarnost, they lack symbols such as Imre Nagy (the prime minister of Hungary who was killed by the communists in 1956, who was exculpated at the first free rally in Hungary). However, Bulgaria has its heroes:

 

These are all who had survived in the communist camps;

These are the courageous people from the Goryani movement, from the Independent Association for Human Rights and Ecoglasnost, these are the mothers from the committee in Russe;

 

Although there is no real Samizdat in Bulgaria, there is the banned book “Fascism” which was distributed from hand to hand, frequently wrapped in Rabotnichesko Delo, the newspaper of the communist party;

 

Writers and thinkers such as Georgi Markov, killed in 1978 in London were persecuted while at that time the first Hungarian intellectuals appeared in western universities. 

 

In 1989 we thought that it would take only a couple of years for us to become a “normal state.” Then we practically failed to realize that the institutions in a democratic state should not only be installed, but should also work efficiently. That the evolution of democracy is not an automatic and straightforward process – we may step forward, but we may also step aside or backwards. The quality of democracy may be reduced, which may provoke large-scale waves of discontent and protests, which may be very continuous. Today people are tired of the “transition” because it seems unfair, not very efficient and above all infinite.  Probably the complexity of the first and most urgent task of the transition period has been underestimated – namely to make the public believe in democracy, to teach the political elites that the country can be governed only by adhering to democratic rules and to make the political parties be fervent supporters of the democratic governance.

 

The idea that no blood was shed during the transition period is true, yet it is not sufficient in itself. The freedom we obtained cannot be measured only in terms of the freedom to travel freely. The valuable lesson freedom has taught us, which we should never forget, dates back to 1989: the lesson taught by the thousands of people that took to the streets in Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, who put an end to a regime and demanded democracy.

 

Today the citizens should assign meaning to democracy and its institutions every day. It does not depend on one or two people, but on millions of Bulgarians. And of course, the right choice and path taken by Bulgaria should be defended – of a free and democratic state, a worthy member of the European family. I am happy that particularly in the past year and half we have fully realized this fact.         

 

December 2, 2023, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

September 20, 2023, New York

Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Implementation Summit, Egypt, 8th of November