How many Times were Diplomatic Relations between Russia and Bulgaria Severed
If we look at history, there are not many cases in which relations between Bulgaria and Russia at the state level were as bad as they are at the moment.
Balkan Cooperation outside the EU Framework
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Photo by Nadya Kotseva (Sofia Photo Agency)
Bulgaria and Croatia have often enjoyed good bilateral relations. In some periods of the 20th century the two Balkan states were especially close as they had a common enemy - Serbia.
For example, Bulgaria's VMRO and the Croatian Ustase cooperated rather actively in the 1930s and 1940s including for the assassination of the Yugoslavian King Alexander I in Marseille on October 9, 1934.
The post-socialist period at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century seems to have brought the cooperation of the Bulgarian and Croatian peoples to new heights even without aid on part of the EU - especially in such crucial spheres as international organized crime.
Last Saturday (October 25) the Serbian expert on organized crime Milos Vasic explained in an interview for the Free Europe Radio that the Bulgarian and Croatian mafias had developed a very close cooperation. As part it they even "swapped murders" - just like the characters of Hitchcock's 1951 movie "Strangers on a Train" did.
Only a couple of days later the Croatian police arrested Robert Matanic as one of the suspects for the murder of the Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic and his associate Niko Franic.
Matanic was detained after a shootout at the Croatia-Serbia border as he was trying to leave the country - just like in a Hollywood action movie.
Several months ago the same person had been released after spending nine months in a Bulgarian prison. Matanic had been suspected of heading an organized crime group, who allegedly carried out several assassinations in Bulgaria in the last few years, including of Bulgarian mobsters such as Milcho Bonev, aka "Bai Mile".
But the Bulgarian investigation authorities did not find enough evidence to sentence Matanic so they let him go. Now, only a few months later he is a suspect for an outrageous gangland murder in Zagreb, which is much closer to Brussels than Sofia is.
Matanic has not been found guilty of any murders in Bulgaria, and he is still under investigation in Croatia. But if all the ALLEGATIONS about him are true, apparently the societies of the post-socialist Balkan states are capable of cooperating at least in some spheres, and without the framework of the European Union.
Sure, it is not high-tech industries and innovative research, but, hey, organized crime and swapping murders around the whole peninsula is still quite an achievement of a certain number of highly talented individuals from all of Southeast Europe.
The really cool thing about Matanic's case, though, is the issue that it would raise if he is actually found guilty of Pukanic's murder (of course, if he is actually involved with it at all, and not just a scapegoat because of his detention history in Bulgaria and Serbia). This would automatically become the most powerful proof of the incapacity and/or corruption of the Bulgarian police and judicial system...
If this is the case, it might turn out that a mobster is released in a EU member state (Bulgaria) "for lack of evidence", and is then sentenced for a similar crime in a non-EU state (Croatia)...
For example, Bulgaria's VMRO and the Croatian Ustase cooperated rather actively in the 1930s and 1940s including for the assassination of the Yugoslavian King Alexander I in Marseille on October 9, 1934.
The post-socialist period at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century seems to have brought the cooperation of the Bulgarian and Croatian peoples to new heights even without aid on part of the EU - especially in such crucial spheres as international organized crime.
Last Saturday (October 25) the Serbian expert on organized crime Milos Vasic explained in an interview for the Free Europe Radio that the Bulgarian and Croatian mafias had developed a very close cooperation. As part it they even "swapped murders" - just like the characters of Hitchcock's 1951 movie "Strangers on a Train" did.
Only a couple of days later the Croatian police arrested Robert Matanic as one of the suspects for the murder of the Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic and his associate Niko Franic.
Matanic was detained after a shootout at the Croatia-Serbia border as he was trying to leave the country - just like in a Hollywood action movie.
Several months ago the same person had been released after spending nine months in a Bulgarian prison. Matanic had been suspected of heading an organized crime group, who allegedly carried out several assassinations in Bulgaria in the last few years, including of Bulgarian mobsters such as Milcho Bonev, aka "Bai Mile".
But the Bulgarian investigation authorities did not find enough evidence to sentence Matanic so they let him go. Now, only a few months later he is a suspect for an outrageous gangland murder in Zagreb, which is much closer to Brussels than Sofia is.
Matanic has not been found guilty of any murders in Bulgaria, and he is still under investigation in Croatia. But if all the ALLEGATIONS about him are true, apparently the societies of the post-socialist Balkan states are capable of cooperating at least in some spheres, and without the framework of the European Union.
Sure, it is not high-tech industries and innovative research, but, hey, organized crime and swapping murders around the whole peninsula is still quite an achievement of a certain number of highly talented individuals from all of Southeast Europe.
The really cool thing about Matanic's case, though, is the issue that it would raise if he is actually found guilty of Pukanic's murder (of course, if he is actually involved with it at all, and not just a scapegoat because of his detention history in Bulgaria and Serbia). This would automatically become the most powerful proof of the incapacity and/or corruption of the Bulgarian police and judicial system...
If this is the case, it might turn out that a mobster is released in a EU member state (Bulgaria) "for lack of evidence", and is then sentenced for a similar crime in a non-EU state (Croatia)...
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