While politicians broadly support Ankara's aims, some fear little
Bulgaria may be sucked back into Turkey's orbit.
By Albena Shkodrova*
Europe's decision to start membership talks with Turkey has fuelled an anguished debate in neighbouring Bulgaria this week, pitting nationalist opponents of Ankara's bid against firm supporters.
Bulgaria is expected to become a member of the union in less than 500 days.
The European Council's decision to formally open accession talks in not an academic matter in Bulgaria.
The country has a 260 km-long land border with Turkey. The two countries are major trading partners and Turkey was one of the firmest defenders of Bulgaria's bid to join NATO in 2002.
More than 800,000 ethnic Turks - 10 per cent of the population - live in Bulgaria, and the ethnically Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS, is an important political player.
Turkey also hosts more than 350,000 ethnic Turks who were expelled from Bulgaria between 1950 and 1989 many of whom regained Bulgarian citizenship in recent years. While remaining in Turkey, they still vote in elections here.
According to the Sofia media, some of these people are very interested in returning to Bulgaria and are already buying up properties in the southeast.
Despite Turkey's major potential to affect Bulgaria, neither politicians nor society at large paid much attention to Ankara's EU ambitions until recently.
The official position was to express general support for Turkey's membership and to offer support in the preparation process.
But the news of the opening of negotiations provoked a very different reaction, hinting at controversies that may yet arise.
The first negative reaction came from the nationalist Ataka - the party which became the fourth largest following the June parliamentary elections. A party representative, Dimitur Stoyanov, aged 21, told anti-Turkish protesters in Brussels on October 3 that it was unnatural for a community, built on Christian values, to unite with a Muslim country situated outside Europe.
Mainstream political observers and analysts adopted a more moderate tone.
Some pointed to Bulgaria's interest in Turkey's EU integration, beyond the obvious point that it will strengthen Turkish democracy and contribute to regional stability.
Charged with responsibility for maintaining the EU's outer border from January 1, 2007, Bulgaria will face fewer difficulties if it can count on its southeast neighbour for support.
"To serve as a border for the outside world is a heavy burden for any country," said Ognyan Minchev, a political scientist from the Institute for Regional and International Studies.
"It would be especially difficult in our case, as our border with Turkey is also a border between two religions and two continents."
Chetin Kazak, a DPS member of parliament, says that a Turkey anchored within Europe, with its strong army and tight borders, would be better placed than Bulgaria to stop the flow of drugs, humans or arms into Europe.
Some analysts even suggest that Ankara's integration may solve lingering cultural and identity problems among the Bulgarians themselves, rooted in their history as part of the Ottoman Empire.
"It may help Bulgarians shed the idea that they are former 'Turkish slaves'," said Antoinette Primatarova, of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, recalling the similarly tortured relationship between Ireland and Britain.
But not all the analysts are so optimistic. Some say Turkey's integration in the EU may pose threats to Bulgaria.
Ognyan Minchev, who says his "contra" arguments are more important that his "pro" one, fears a "Turkish Europe" taking shape in the Balkans.
"Turkish membership would remove the border between our two countries and bring Bulgaria, which is in demographic stagnation, into an expansionist Turkey's orbit," he said.
Minchev said Bulgaria faces serious ethnic challenges from its growing Roma minority and from the DPS's drive to expand its political influence over the country's whole Muslim community.
Chetin Kazak from the DPS disagrees, recalling that many small states co-exist beside much mightier states within the EU.
But that is unlikely to stem criticism of the DPS as a force that exerts more influence over politics than its numbers warrant.
Over the past ten years, the party has been a key partner in each government, gaining an important say-so over decisions, although it never gained more than 14 per cent of the seats in parliament.
Minchev says Bulgaria needs to firmly define relations with Turkey within the EU just as Poland did with Germany. But he worries that the DPS may block Bulgaria from doing so.
He admits that the idea that Turkish membership will curtail Bulgaria's independence sounds far-fetched but says it is important to address and discuss the issue.
While he and the other Bulgarian analysts continue to argue rationally over the issue, the country's nationalists are unlikely to be so restrained.
* Albena Shkodrova is the Bulgarian editor of Balkan Insight and director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN in Bulgaria. Balkan Insight is BIRN's on line publication.
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