Minister Zaharieva: Bulgaria must speak in a single voice in its foreign policy
08 February 2019 News
Asked by the media about the alleged discord between the government and the president on the situation in Venezuela, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva commented on the principles of Bulgaria’s foreign policy and the mechanisms of formulating a national position.
‘Under the Constitution, the foreign policy of Bulgaria is implemented by the Council of Ministers,’ she reminded reporters at the National Assembly. She went on to explain that although the government has never been under any obligation to coordinate with the presidential institution, e.g., the Treaty on Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation with the Republic of Macedonia, it did so prior to introducing the document for ratification by the National Assembly. ‘We in the government believe that it’s best for Bulgaria to speak in a single voice internationally, and this is what we do,’ stressed Minister Zaharieva. ‘Very often we send in advance to the Office of the President the positions that we are about to express on different matters.’
The government will continue to work like that in the future because we believe that together with the presidential institution we share a common responsibility with respect to this country’s foreign policy, Minister Zaharieva underscored. ‘So it’s very important that we all work together for the international reputation of the Republic of Bulgaria,’ she summed up.
Minister Zaharieva rejected the allegation that Bulgaria had failed to present its own position on the matter of Venezuela but copy/pasted the text from its EU partners.
She recalled that only in the course of the previous year, Venezuela had been discussed at several meetings of the EU foreign policy council and that the Union had adopted common, i.e. approved by all 28 members, declarations on the matter. ‘We have participated in all working groups and at every level in Brussels through our representatives there, as well as at every council meeting where Venezuela was under scrutiny,’ stated the Deputy Prime Minister. ‘So I cannot accept the allegation that someone wrote something for us and we simply copy-pasted it.’
The Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that, in the cases of both the Treaty with the Republic of Macedonia and the Bulgarian position on Venezuela, the Office of the President had been personally briefed, by her, on the texts of the document, regardless of the fact that there was no legal obligation for the government to do so. Such a gesture was the result of the willingness on the part of the government to arrive at a common stand with the Office of the President, and an expression of its belief that efforts for coordination should continue.