Ștefan Popescu
Summary
The speech delivered by Ștefan Popescu on 15 September 2026 highlights the need for relations between Romania and Bulgaria to move from mere sectoral cooperation to genuine, integrated strategic coordination.
- Bulgaria’s geopolitical importance: Our neighbouring country is a vital infrastructural, Balkan and maritime hub, as well as a crucial energy pivot for Romania’s regional security.
- The European context and regionalisation: Against a backdrop of political unpredictability in the Euro-Atlantic area and the trend towards the strategic regionalisation of Europe, Romania and Bulgaria risk becoming peripheral if they do not build their own regional capacity.
- The shift towards strategic coordination: It is proposed to establish a Romanian-Bulgarian strategic community (a Visegrád-style platform, subsequently extended to include Greece and Italy) focused on several priority areas.
- Security and defence: Maintaining the functionality of the Black Sea and the Danube, extending agreements on demining and the monitoring of critical infrastructure (together with Turkey), as well as integrated projects in the defence industry.
- Infrastructure and energy: Connecting the ports of Constanța, Varna and Burgas, developing trans-European corridors and harnessing local energy sources in parallel with the Vertical Corridor.
- Foreign policy: A common and coordinated approach to relations with Turkey, Greece, Italy and the Western Balkans.
Regional integration and strategic coordination represent the only solution for both states to overcome demographic and economic challenges, thereby avoiding political marginalisation within the new European architecture.
Speech
It is important to recognise Bulgaria’s significance for Romania. Bulgaria is not merely a neighbour of Romania, but a state bordering the Black Sea, a Balkan state, a gateway between the Balkans and Anatolia, and a hub linking the Danube, the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. Given this situation, our neighbours are currently formulating their security policy with the Black Sea at its centre. In other words, Bulgaria is a crossroads, a particularly important energy hub for the region’s energy security, and our neighbours’ role has proved essential in preventing supply disruptions for Romanian industry and society during this dry season.
This position gives Bulgaria a significance that transcends its demographic and economic size.
Bulgaria is, like Romania, one of the points where the security of Central Europe meets that of the Black Sea. In the new context of the international system’s transition – a point on which I shall not dwell further – the fundamental issue for Bulgaria and Romania is not whether they belong to the West. This issue has been resolved at the institutional level. The strategic issue is how much of our own and regional capacity we can generate at a time when the political cohesion of the European and Euro-Atlantic spaces is becoming increasingly unpredictable. We are all witnessing the emergence of limited cooperation formats and coalitions of willing, even on a major strategic issue such as Ukraine.
The risk of a strategic regionalisation of Europe – through the emergence of groups of states within the same Union that are beginning to define their security, energy, infrastructure and foreign policy on the basis of their own neighbourhoods – is growing. For Bulgaria and Romania, this development is a cause for concern and, in any case, fraught with challenges. If Europe is becoming regionalised, then South-Eastern Europe must avoid becoming merely a periphery to decisions taken in other centres of power. Hence the need for closer strategic cooperation between Bulgaria and Romania.
We have all the prerequisites for establishing a Romanian-Bulgarian, Bulgarian-Romanian strategic community. We need to move from sectoral cooperation to strategic coordination in the following areas: Black Sea security[1], Danube security, critical infrastructure[2], the ports of Constanța, Varna and Burgas, rail and road corridors, the defence industry – we need integrated projects – relations with Turkey, relations with Greece and the Western Balkans, and relations with Italy. Such an integrated agenda would transform our bilateral relationship into a tool for exerting regional influence. To this end, the question we must answer honestly is: what influence can we wield within the Europe that is now taking shape? How do we build, together with Greece and Italy, a strategic regional presence? We need our own Visegrád Group! For, given the substantial demographic decline affecting us, as well as our economic potential and growth rates, our only chance is regional integration, so that we may avoid falling into irrelevance.
[1] Both Bulgaria and Romania have an interest in maintaining a functional Black Sea, as far as possible given the high-intensity naval conflict in the northern Black Sea. In these circumstances, the demining agreement – extended to cover the monitoring of critical infrastructure between Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey – should serve as the basis for broader cooperation.
[2] However, cooperation on the development of the Vertical Corridor must go hand in hand with the utilisation of local energy sources, given that LNG is arriving at uncompetitive prices.
Photo: Ștefan Popescu (source: Ștefan Popescu)
Subscribe to the channel of the blog “The Bridge of Friendship” in YouTube, where a number of video and audio interviews are published! The blog can also be followed in Facebook and Twitter. Its Telegram channel is here. And here is its Substack account.
About Author
Discover more from The Bridge of Friendship
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
