There is certain evidence that the migrants who entered Austria did not go through the Balkan route

Ilhan Kyuchuk, MEP of the DPS, in an interview for the “Good day, Bulgaria” program on Radio “Focus”:

We continue with the echo here, in our country, of the refusal of Holland and Austria to let Bulgaria enter the Schengen area. We discuss the matter with DPS MEP Ilhan Kyuchuk. Was the refusal of the Netherlands and Austria towards Bulgaria expected?

Judging by the logic of the two countries, by their positioning in recent weeks, I would say yes, especially the Netherlands, which has sided strongly with its resolution within the Dutch parliament. It came as a surprise, if not a big surprise, to Austria’s position. It is a country that traditionally plays an important role, not only in the Western Balkans, but also in the entire region as a whole. Austria’s policies are very important regarding the integration of the Western Balkans into the European Union and it is a long-standing friend of both Bulgaria and Romania. And the argument that Bulgaria does not protect its external borders well, the argument that due to the changed migratory pressure it is unable to admit Bulgaria and Romania to “Schengen” is, in my opinion, indisputable to say the least , it’s late “If Austria had to make this as a statement, as a political position, it should have done it much sooner, not convincing everyone at the last minute that it had its concerns. Sorry, this debate is not yesterday’s in the European institutions. ..

Yup.

For the change of “Dublin”, for the functioning of the Schengen area, very serious steps were taken during the French presidency, at a certain point it was pointed out that Bulgaria and Romania cannot be part of “Schengen” because there it is migratory pressure on Austria along the Balkan route. And there is categorical data showing the exact opposite. Those people who entered the territory of Austria did not go through the migration route for which Bulgaria is responsible, and the profile of most of the people – India, Burundi, Tunisia, Morocco – does not match the profile of the people detained in Bulgaria . For me, Bulgaria fulfills its obligations to ensure the security of one of the most sensitive external borders of the European Union in an extremely responsible way. And the pressure has increased more than four times over the past year – note. Since the beginning of the year, more than 155,000 people have been prevented from crossing the border illegally. These are official data. More than 4,000 were stopped on their way out. People under the age of 14 are registered in the Eurodac system. The matter is simply more complex.

Yes, but what is happening on the border with the pressure of migrants is the real reason why you can’t enter the space? See anything else?

For me, there is technically no reason for Bulgaria not to be part of the Schengen area. We have fulfilled all conditions. We have been part of this mechanism since 2011. Twice there have been site inspections, definite positions taken by the European Parliament and the European Commission, but it still seems to me that there must also be a slightly more sober reading of the mistakes made on our part, in addition to blaming others, let’s see our own backyard a bit. We have had a permanent political crisis for two years. This creates enormous distrust in our international partners. There must be a mechanism to get out of this maelstrom of political crisis in Bulgaria. We cannot expect to hold new and new elections in Germany and the Netherlands every three months, let alone all these countries that have their own skepticism on various topics, so they don’t understand. No, it’s incomprehensible. A Croatia has been seen to achieve a huge success with both its entry into the Eurozone and its entry into ‘Schengen’. What is the key, what is Croatian success? Croatian success lies in political stability. A certain Andrej Plenković, who was a colleague of mine – we were together in the foreign policy committee for two years, he came back, he became the president of his party, they won the elections, there was political stability for six years. Do they have serious differences? Of course they have serious differences – on the budget, on energy, on social spending, on the deficit. But on strategic priorities, they have combined all their efforts, their national capacity from left, right and center and achieved what they had achieve, what was their goal. And on the other side, we have a blurry Bulgaria with permanent political crises, a strong nationwide opposition, many years of deep slander of our country by Bulgarian citizens, of course, people who are in politics for two days, journalism for three ata days, reports were written with various leaflets, but this one has its institutional memory in the European institutions. Remains. Even the material written on a loose sheet remains, the information is preserved. And let’s not ask ourselves why these direct links are made between the rule of law and our entry into “Schengen”, because to a large extent we have given the reason.

Without wanting to be angry children, but of course we can’t help but ask ourselves this question: how to explain Croatia’s readiness for “Schengen”, since it entered the European Union after us, and Bulgaria and Romania are not ready? And so we establish here that there was still some chance for Romania from the Netherlands.

There is no order, there are conditions, there is political persuasion, there are efforts that unite nationally, forge a position and defend it externally. The excellent example of Croatia shows us that all this is possible. There were skeptical countries, one of which was Germany, but he was convinced at the last moment. That is. it matters who leads, it matters who is in front and how it unites, how it involves the others, the opposition in this process. We have to learn that we have to work together. This twice “must” is really a must and we have the experience of the good results. European Union, but what have we done? We merged: DPS – with positions in the Liberals, BSP – with positions in the European Socialists, other parties then, before the GERB came – in the European People’s Party, and as one the opposition was convinced, the ruling party got involved , the media, non-governmental organizations, the authorities maneuvering for the Bulgarian national interest. What’s stopping us from doing it again? In exactly the same way, a proven working mechanism. Instead, we create additional traps and explain who is right and who is wrong in the created situation. For so many years, everyone has made mistakes, whether those who ruled for 12 years, or those who were in power for seven months, or those who currently have the difficult task of solving long-standing problems. it is common sense to look a little at experience, which can be positive in the interest of the truth, and Bulgaria has demonstrated this.

Unfortunately, however, you will be right, especially since this topic – the refusal to be admitted to “Schengen” – will now also become an issue of the electoral campaign, because according to analysts’ forecasts we are going to early parliamentary elections. So instead of reaching some kind of unity on this matter, it looks like we’re going to continue to swear abroad on our own. And what should really be our political discourse inside the country, and abroad, of course, from now on? then? Which line should we follow?

In terms of European policies, Bulgaria has never had a univocal reading. Exactly the opposite. Very dramatically, I would say, opposing points of view, depending of course on which party is in power and which is in opposition. And that’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that we fail to put the interests of our citizens first. What happened with “Schengen” is unfortunately a heavy stigma for Bulgarian citizens, they don’t deserve it. However, this demonstrates the inability, the inability of the Bulgarian political elite to consolidate efforts for national causes. We always say that there must be a cause in politics. Yes, politics is not just technology, emotion, politics is a cause, but I don’t see how a great cause can be achieved with political parties divided on the most important issues of the country. And of course this will be used in the short term for some infighting. Who helps? Nobody. We have to learn that big problems have to be sustained, invented, defended out there with long term thinking, with a strategy if you will. This is what serious countries do.

However, we have to admit that there was also a campaign against Bulgaria, I mean with clips and reports from the border, where our country was directly accused of shooting migrants along the border, keeping migrants in shacks in very bad conditions . You’ve probably seen the footage and everything that has been said on this subject. Yes, obviously we have a problem, we are not doing very well. And in this regard, President Rumen Radev is meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Can we, should we, ask for some kind of help or assistance for border security as well? We know that this has been achieved in the past.

FRONTEX has increased its capacity, but it is undeniably insufficient, both in terms of personnel and financial resources. It is not an easy border to protect. And here we must be completely frank. Any help from our European partners is not only welcome, but mandatory. We are talking about a European border.

Yup.

On the other hand, the whole mechanism with which Europe deals with migratory pressure also involves a very active work with safe countries, defined as safe, and Turkey is one of them. The agreement in question, stipulated between Turkey and the European Union, has been harshly criticized from the outset.

Right.

But if we looked at its results now and asked those same people who criticized it, they would probably have a very different opinion. There is no way, when the world – this is a global challenge – the world is facing global migratory pressure, not to work with partner countries. And in this sense, the good neighborliness between Bulgaria and Turkey and the very active work on issues of security, migration, trade, in general the building of deep relations, which aim to shape Europe and the world of the 21st century in the way in which seeing it, with its problems, but also with the search for its solutions, has a profound meaning and I would encourage every head of state to do what is necessary in this direction.