The Trump 2.0 times as seen from a Bulgarian-Romanian perspective: while borders and divisions in the West are rising, in the EU’s Southeast the logic of the center is being affirmed

Vladimir Mitev 

On 4 February 2024, the discussion “European-American Relations under Trump 2.0: Perspectives from Bulgaria and Romania”, organised by the Romanian Embassy in the Republic of Bulgaria, the European Council on Foreign Relations in Sofia and the Bulgarian-Romanian blog The Bridge of Friendship, took place at the Romanian Embassy in Sofia. 

The discussion featured opening remarks by the Romanian Ambassador to Bulgaria, H.E. Brândușa Predescu, followed by keynote speeches by Vessela Tcherneva (Deputy Head of the European Council on Foreign Relations) and Radu Magdin (CEO Smartlink Communications and Romanian risc consultant). The event was moderated by Petar Karaboev, deputy editor-in-chief of Dnevnik newspaper. The founder of the Bridge of Friendship, Vladimir Mitev, also had the opportunity to address the audience, which consisted mainly of diplomats from EU and NATO member states, as well as Bulgarian politicians and foreign policy analysts. 

Vessela Tcherneva (deputy director of ECFR) argued that “the world has changed and we have to realise that”, also commenting on Trump’s unpredictability: “None of us predicted that he would reach out to Greenland and Canada”.

Radu Magdin (CEO, Smartlink Communications Ltd.) noted the importance of bilateral relations and regional solidarity, and emphasised that although things could move faster, relations between Bulgaria and Romania are moving in the right direction.

The Bridge of Friendship offers below the keynote speech and closing remarks of its founder Vladimir Mitev. While the disruption of the Euro-Atlantic, international and civil society order brought about by Donald Trump’s rise to power encourages feelings of worry, doom and gloom, Vladimir tried to offer not a Trump-centred but a Friendship Bridge-centred view of what is happening in Southeast Europe and the EU. He noted that while in the West certain fractures that were previously hidden under the banner of Euro-Atlantic solidarity are now coming to the surface, while the notion of the West is steadily moving towards the plural (Wests), in Southeast Europe borders are falling and a region that was previously a kind of internal periphery of the West is now developing a logic of the centre in its internal political and other relations. 

When asked for his closing remarks, Vladimir developed a potentially hopeful interpretation of how Bulgaria and Romania are responding to Trump 2.0 and its potential and ongoing impact on EU-US relations. The bottom line is that while the US and Western Europe in their interior and between one another are becoming increasingly polarised, Bulgaria and Romania seem to be looking for politicians and government formulas that bridge divisions and integrate different currents. 

Here is Vladimir’s keynote speech:

While internal borders and divisions are strengthening in the West, borders are falling in Southeastern Europe

Thank you all for coming and dedicating your time to this event, which I think will be a really good discussion. In fact, I think that Ruse has a place in the conversation at this table, also because, perhaps paradoxically, in a situation where the other speakers have some concerns about what’s coming next (in the era of Trump 2.0), I can argue that in some areas things have perhaps changed for the better in recent years.

Let me give just one small example. While there are tariff wars in the West and some countries in the European Union are returning to some form of control of their Schengen borders, in our region, in Southeastern Europe, the borders are falling. And that perhaps means something that we could reflect on. 

Today I am also here on behalf of my blog, which is the Bridge of Friendship, a website that is published in English, Romanian and Bulgarian. It started in 2015 and currently it has more than 2,000 articles on various issues related to one of the countries or both countries and their relations.

So in case someone wants to follow the dynamics of Bulgarian-Romanian relations, not only political but also human, citizen-led, I think it’s a potentially good site to subscribe to and read. And I argue that it’s not just a standard site with news or analysis or interviews. I argue that it is also a kind of philosophy. I argue that it’s a philosophy of a kind of non-hegemonic communication in this space between the two, let’s say, elements, Bulgarian and Romanian. And I think this is important, because precisely when borders fall and when perhaps the conditions for greater interaction are created, the lack of hegemony could perhaps also mean more potential.

I told you that the Bulgarian-Romanian blog started in 2015, so in a way it follows the dynamics of relations in recent years. And to continue the thesis that maybe some things are changing for the better in some areas, I have to say that for a long time Bulgarians and Romanians were turning their backs on each other, which basically meant that Bulgaria was more concerned with the Western Balkans and Romania was perhaps more interested in Moldova or the North East in general. It was the war in Ukraine, a cataclysmic event that actually made the two countries review their relationship and realise that they needed to do more with each other. So in 2023 there was the Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership, signed by the presidents of the two countries.

One of the elements of the declaration was that a new bridge would be built near Ruse and Giurgiu, where there’s already a bridge called the Friendship Bridge. This development has been helped by the fact that the two countries fully joined the Schengen area at the beginning of this year. 

I stress all these facts because we are now in a situation where there is a certain competition of elites, either in our region or at the international level. And I would like to remind you that in a democracy, the competition between elites is about the citizens having a better life, having more resources, skills, etc. And this is my point in this speech, which, as I said, tries to discuss positive developments. 

We are in a situation where, to put it humorously, neither ”Putin”, nor ”Soros”, nor any other “evil spirit” can stop me from crossing the Bulgarian-Romanian border. So we are increasingly in a situation in our region where obstacles to what we can do with each other are being removed. And the enemy of positive change is actually who we are. I mean, our limitations, deficits, whatever you call it, our lack of imagination, creativity or whatever, they are the enemy. And we can no longer have the excuse that some international cabal, some evil force is preventing us from being who we want to be. 

That, in a nutshell, is my message, which we can also reflect on and perhaps discuss later.

Here are Vladimir Mitev’s closing remarks:

The bridge approach is on the rise in Bulgarian and Romanian politics in the era of Trump 2.0

I will be very brief. I would like to be perhaps the different voice again and say that the bridge is something that our countries seem to be practising even in the Trump era. We now have a government in Bulgaria that includes both people from NGO backgrounds and populist parties.

And we see in Romania candidates who seem to somehow combine pro-EU, pro-NGO with certain conservative, sovereignist contacts. So again we are worried that there is change, perhaps for the worse, but the idea of a bridge might be something we could think about.

Photo: H.E. Brândușa Predeschu – Romanian ambassador to Bulgaria (speaking), (from right to left) Radu Magdin, Vessela Tcherneva, Petar Karaboev and Vladimir Mitev (source: Romanian embassy in the Republic of Bulgaria)

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