Bulgaria has no strategic vision whatsoever for its development within the realities of the EU, according to Ahmed Dogan, leader of the Bulgarian ethnic Turkish party DPS.

According to Dogan, who spoke Friday at a forum in Sofia organized by the Stetan Stambolov Leadership Institute, Bulgaria is about to become part of a "team C" of EU member states, i.e. the ones that are technically EU outcasts.

Five years after its EU accession Bulgaria has no strategic EU vision, neither does it have any clear national priorities, the Bulgarian ethnic Turkish leader believes, as cited by Darik Radio

He thinks that the European Union is facing a "crisis of tolerance" as far as intra-EU balancing between the various member states is concerned, and that through the apportioning of the EU budget, the European Commission is about to divide the EU into an "A team and a B team", and even a "C team" where Bulgaria will be placed.

"We have been in the EU for 5 years. Before that, we found excuses that we want to join NATO first, and then the EU. Even today, everything that we associate with EU membership boils down to some kinds of funding and subsidies, or money for our infrastructure. We have no strategic vision. Bulgaria is a part of a bigger entity, and we need a thoroughly different methodology for drafting a new vision for our country," Dogan declared.

"When the nation and the state have no defined priorities about the development of the country, there is no way of talking about priorities in the development of science. The priorities of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences must be a reflection of the national development priorities – both in the economic and in the spiritual realm. And who knows Bulgaria's priorities? Can anybody tell me what they are, especially in terms of the economy in the EU context?" Dogan asked rhetorically.

“The Bulgarian society has not experienced its necessary spiritual catharsis yet. We are not aware of who we are and what we want. We want to be Europeans a priori,” he said.

“Unfortunately, in the past 20 years, the Bulgarian intellectual elite shut itself off, and encapsulated itself. It was just an observer of the process of creation and establishment of leaders through the mass media. This role of the observer has a very high price to be paid. The intellectual elite needs to be very active, and, in the very least, it needs to define Bulgaria's place in the European cultural, economic, multicultural, and administrative space. Europe's big aim is to create a united entity but at the moment this is just a project because it is neither united, nor an entity. The Bulgarian intellectual elite needs to have reserve options for all possible models of development of the country,” Dogan elaborated.

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